Regarding the August 23 balance preview....power creep is not good .

[Sunchaser.9854]

One of the common main selling points in gw2 was, you can use any build, any gear you want to level up open world. But if your scrappy randomly assembled junk affix gear is slower at killing mobs than the realism rate and turns 1-5 minute boss fights on the 5-30k spectrum into 15-30 minutes or 60 minutes per Balthazar quest boss, your randomly assembled build 0.5-5k randomly assembled rotation might not be the 28k another class auto attacks to.

And tuning content around the top 5% leads to like stories of apparently people failing so wons meta 5x in a row. Which has like a dps check of 10 people in 50 people passing 10-20k dps and the other bottom 40 could be 0.5k-4k and it'd pass.  Yet for the average bottom 80%, they fail the event 7 times in a row so they want a easy button that shields, teleports and the like. Instead of nerfing one spec in 30 or buffing like the lower 20/30, people opted to nudge the underperforming specs up a bit rather than nerf classes. Its very evident gw2 wants to be a polar opposite. It first made its specs unneededly overly punishing and convoluted even by mmorpg standards by having weapon swaps, auto chain breaks, 20-30 part rotations on 5-10 visible keys. Engi kits that didn't appear, auto chains that don't save, mallyx pulses that don't trigger 3x unless you throttle your ability use for half a rotation. And punishing mechanics etc. Gw2 is A convoluted system even by other mmorpg standards with a whiplash of moods. It designed itself then rejected what it made, but left 20/30 classes that way and some non engi eod specs are really honestly quite bleh other than mech.

I hope this buff makes a couple of the more sucky ones useful. Vindicator was a boonless dps who couldn't dodge 2x well. So some of the balance changes might actually be huge for numbers for it. 

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

One of the game's core selling points was that everyone can play everything. No limitations to certain roles for certain professions. If they continue the balancing in the same manner, we might end up with this old concept again - full circle.

They are currently addressing the targets one by one. It seems the main focus is on balancing the classes, bringing everyone up to speed. I hope for viable power, condition, support and tank builds available for every profession.  Once that is done, I am certain they are going to address environmental balancing. Requesting them to do both at the same time is kind of bold. Sure it would be great not to deal with the side-effects, but this would take too many resources (i guess).

Lucky for us, most professions already have approaches for all the existing styles. They are just underperforming and require a little tweaking. While the process might be quite exhausting, I think the final result might be worth the trouble.

[Einsof.1457]

Just now, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

One of the game's core selling points was that everyone can play everything. No limitations to certain roles for certain professions. If they continue the balancing in the same manner, we might end up with this old concept again - full circle.

They are currently addressing the targets one by one. It seems the main focus is on balancing the classes, bringing everyone up to speed. I hope for viable power, condition, support and tank builds available for every profession.  Once that is done, I am certain they are going to address environmental balancing. Requesting them to do both at the same time is kind of bold. Sure it would be great not to deal with the side-effects, but this would take too many resources (i guess).

Lucky for us, most professions already have approaches for all the existing styles. They are just underperforming and require a little tweaking. While the process might be quite exhausting, I think the final result might be worth the trouble.

Homgenization in games is usually the death of the game. Professions should have unique benefits, not all globbed into one.  Regardless, that's not the point of this thread. The point is, by making everyone INCREDIBLY more powerful, the game is going to become more dull. 70% of raid bosses already have skippable mechanics that were NOT skippable during their launch, which is a testament to the devastating effect of power creep. 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Einsof.1457

[chronometria.3708]

Its not powercreep when it means unused professions actually get to see play. By this point most classes had around 4 or so weapons at least that simply didnt see active play.

 

I mean, isnt this the first time guardian hammer has actually seen a buff? 

[Astralporing.1957]

57 minutes ago, Einsof.1457 said:

That makes zero sense. 

If you make a HC content,you tune it towards what HC players are capable of. But if you make OW content, you tune it for OW players. Does that make sense to you so far? Now, that may be a bit harder - you tune it not for the top OW players, but for the average ones.

Now, imagine a situation where due to balance changes, the capability of top players goes up visibly... but an average OW player still does 4-6k dps. Do you tune up the content to go with the increases at the very top? Then you end up with something like DE, where groups doing the content don't want to see any of those average openworlders on their map, and where those average openworlders have no chance at all of doing the meta on their own. But not just on one map, but everywhere.

For me, that makes zero sense.

 

[Einsof.1457]

48 minutes ago, chronometria.3708 said:

Its not powercreep when it means unused professions actually get to see play. By this point most classes had around 4 or so weapons at least that simply didnt see active play.

 

I mean, isnt this the first time guardian hammer has actually seen a buff? 

you can improve professions without trivializing content. Fyi. 

[Taclism.2406]

1 hour ago, Einsof.1457 said:

Let me ask, what is wrong with also tuning content to meet the power creep of the professions? If the goal is balance then what is the problem with also tuning content to balance? This is a PvE balance update and all it does is make professions across the board perform better from a mathematical standpoint, while the content (specifically raid/fractal/openworld encounters) remains stagnant. At the very least the HP pools of encounters should go up with the expected additional damage output that this update will bring. This sort of balance is also important. 

You're missing my point, but also got the wrong idea about balance.
Balancing players is changing classes/weapons so they're somewhat as viable (or at least not complete "noob traps")
Balancing content is slowly, over time, making sure its accessible to more and more people (and thus easier). Powercreep is 100% intended in a game life cycle, especially in PvE. 
If you buff enemy numbers to match the player increase, you didnt made it more accessible, you just inflated numbers for no real purpose.

My point was that given you (probably) did everything that's hard in the game, and that gw2 current goal is to become more and more accessible / easy , you'll be bashing your head against a wall arguing over and over for general difficulty increases.
I'm not even saying you're right or wrong, having enough DPS to entirely skip mechanics is a real downside to that sort of DPS buff. I'm just saying you're failing to acknowledge/accept gw2's direction.

[Ashantara.8731]

I'm confused. Take Dragonhunter or Power Berserker for instance: they are already dealing extremely high damage. Why buff them instead of nerfing the laughingly crazy damage of Power Mechanist?

I'm all in for Elementalist buffs, though. But in general... I am.... confused. 😉

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

17 hours ago, MintyMin.2718 said:

Hundreds of nerf patches over the years and many of them are very high handed ones, I am talking about like 70% to 80% kind of nerfs. One buff patch and you cried power creep 🙄 Dull for you maybe but not the rest of the 99.9999%.

Equip yourself with lvl10 gears and weapons. There's your challenge.

Damage has almost never been nerfed in PvE, only utility. The whole problem is that they keep increasing damage and taking away utility, which is making the game braindead especially in open-world.

 

You could shave 30% of the damage off everyone in PvE and the game would be better for it because players would have to actually do something in fights than DPS. You can literally phase most bosses in the game in 2-3sec now and sometimes skip mechanics entirely.

 

Most of my characters only do 10k DPS because I'm lazy, and it already absolutely destroys everything that's not a raid boss. Enemies in older content just evaporate even if they're veterans or elites. Champions die in seconds. Now imagine players doing 20-30k in groups and how that has to be balanced.

 

The game is locked in a never-ending arms race with powercreep.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Einsof.1457]

28 minutes ago, Taclism.2406 said:

You're missing my point, but also got the wrong idea about balance.
Balancing players is changing classes/weapons so they're somewhat as viable (or at least not complete "noob traps")
Balancing content is slowly, over time, making sure its accessible to more and more people (and thus easier). Powercreep is 100% intended in a game life cycle, especially in PvE. 
If you buff enemy numbers to match the player increase, you didnt made it more accessible, you just inflated numbers for no real purpose.

My point was that given you (probably) did everything that's hard in the game, and that gw2 current goal is to become more and more accessible / easy , you'll be bashing your head against a wall arguing over and over for general difficulty increases.
I'm not even saying you're right or wrong, having enough DPS to entirely skip mechanics is a real downside to that sort of DPS buff. I'm just saying you're failing to acknowledge/accept gw2's direction.

I'll be going down with the ship with the rest of you. The only difference is I will be the annoying screeching guy telling everyone "I told you so."

[Hashberry.4510]

Looks like they are discarding a practice that set them apart; keeping old content relevant.

[Shena Fu.5792]

2 hours ago, Einsof.1457 said:

Let me ask, what is wrong with also tuning content to meet the power creep of the professions? If the goal is balance then what is the problem with also tuning content to balance? This is a PvE balance update and all it does is make professions across the board perform better from a mathematical standpoint, while the content (specifically raid/fractal/openworld encounters) remains stagnant. At the very least the HP pools of encounters should go up with the expected additional damage output that this update will bring. This sort of balance is also important. 

They barely have time to tweak classes. How can they have time to revamp all the years of PVE content, across 4 continents, 3 expansions? This will be a never-ending cycle of power-creeping the players, then content, then players again, then content, ad nauseam. It's a waste of time and frustration for everybody -- devs and players. 

[Einsof.1457]

14 minutes ago, Shena Fu.5792 said:

They barely have time to tweak classes. How can they have time to revamp all the years of PVE content, across 4 continents, 3 expansions? This will be a never-ending cycle of power-creeping the players, then content, then players again, then content, ad nauseam. It's a waste of time and frustration for everybody -- devs and players. 

Better for anet to put the work in now than when raids are on solo farm status, then. 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Einsof.1457

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

 

39 minutes ago, Einsof.1457 said:

Better for anet to put the work in now than when raids are on solo farm status, then. 

Its already been :P

(the good old days , when thief had traps (benefit from Stealth Runes) and they didnt reveal you . Ahh the  fun old memories of WvW , getting killed by an 100% total invisible player at spawn)

Edit: are you sure old gg , you dont Conditions to "mark" the target (blood footsteps) for Unranked ?

Edited August 13, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[SuavePuppy.2809]

50 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Take Dragonhunter or Power Berserker for instance: they are already dealing extremely high damage.

Are we playing the same game?

[Ashen.2907]

17 hours ago, MintyMin.2718 said:

Hundreds of nerf patches over the years and many of them are very high handed ones, I am talking about like 70% to 80% kind of nerfs. One buff patch and you cried power creep 🙄 Dull for you maybe but not the rest of the 99.9999%.

Equip yourself with lvl10 gears and weapons. There's your challenge.

Overall class performance today, before the upcoming buffs, is significantly higher than was the case originally. 

[Gibson.4036]

17 hours ago, Demon Pie.2634 said:

The most random nerf to Mirage lmao because yeah why the hell not?

 

Anet literally cannot make a "balance" patch without ruining someone's experience. Thanks a lot, smartest devs of the industry!

I’m actually wondering if they put in the mirage axe nerf so that they have something to change between now and patch day.

That way they can remove the axe nerf and say, “See, we put the patch notes up, and listened to feedback!”

[mythical.6315]

What struck me as odd was how they’re attempting to make ranged attacks more comparable to melee. Ranged attacks have always had the trade off that you were generally safer at the expense of damage while melee did more damage as it was riskier. They used to speak so often of things having trade offs and now they go and do this. 

[Cronospere.8143]

Wasnt there like a huge big thread a few weeks ago saying dps of 95 % of the people was too low? 

Now you think the dps will be too high?

[Will.9785]

22 hours ago, Einsof.1457 said:

If you're going to make almost everyone hit harder across the board, you should also buff enemies to maintain dare I say....balance. these sweeping power creep updates are making the game more and more dull to play. 99.9% of content is too easy already. 

This isn't power creep.  Power dps was nerfed hard with the spirit and banner rework.  This is just helping to get them back to where they were and, at the same time, bringing some of the 'noob trap' weapons a bit up to par.

[Donari.5237]

8 hours ago, Einsof.1457 said:

Let me ask, what is wrong with also tuning content to meet the power creep of the professions? If the goal is balance then what is the problem with also tuning content to balance? This is a PvE balance update and all it does is make professions across the board perform better from a mathematical standpoint, while the content (specifically raid/fractal/openworld encounters) remains stagnant. At the very least the HP pools of encounters should go up with the expected additional damage output that this update will bring. This sort of balance is also important. 

I would like some clarification on this.  If profession dps is buffed, but so is the hp it's attacking, then why bother at all?  The end result is the same percentage of health removed per the same amount of attacks and only the size of the numbers have changed.  Might as well just keep things as they are.

Yes, 'power creep' is where the professions do a rising amount of damage so as to eventually trivialize once-difficult encounters.  Yes, there are varying levels of this that players find acceptable or even desirable.  But you seem to be arguing (may not be arguing, this is why I am asking for clarification) that the solution is to just push up the numbers across the board.  Which turns into a lot of resources spent changing nothing at all.  Is this your intent?

[Labjax.2465]

My understanding is the goal with this patch is to create more options for those who want to play optimally and maybe make it harder to be abysmal contribution levels. I didn't get the sense at all the goal was to raise the power ceiling. Just raise the floor, so there's less 1k dps type stuff  going on and more options for people who are consciously assessing their output. I guess that could be seen as increasing overall power, but I'm not sure it counts as power creep, since the potential was already there, provided everyone played meta builds, or close-ish to it.

It may be that after raising the floor, they will find they need to lower the ceiling because the raised floor makes people overall better at contributing and in turn trivializes encounters where people were otherwise sloppy. But even a little of that is gonna annoy people who min-max, unless it's done very carefully across the board to be fair to every class, and even then, would prob annoy people who do stuff like speed-runs.

In other words, if all that's happening here is the floor is raised, that means it's easier to find a group that will do the content slightly closer to the way min-max players are already doing it. If that's trivializing it, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe it means more people get comfortable doing instanced PvE content and clamor for more of it, and then anet sees more reason to make more and includes CM type stuff as well, which maintains that level of content the competitive types crave.

[Yaki.9563]

On 8/12/2022 at 4:25 PM, MintyMin.2718 said:

Hundreds of nerf patches over the years and many of them are very high handed ones, I am talking about like 70% to 80% kind of nerfs. One buff patch and you cried power creep 🙄 Dull for you maybe but not the rest of the 99.9999%.

Equip yourself with lvl10 gears and weapons. There's your challenge.

You must be playing a different game than the rest of us. You really think that 30k+ dps was normal 8 years ago? 

[Yaki.9563]

23 hours ago, Bast.7253 said:

I mean in pve who cares. But it is kind of funny that their balance patches are always just damage coefficients and slapping boons onto everything. 

Most people? There's a reason they put little effort into PvP and WvW: few people play those modes. Boring, unchallenging PvE will kill any momentum they've got going for them.

[Yaki.9563]

19 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I do think it is a bad idea to raise everyone up to the level of AFKMech rather than reigning it in...

There's a long way to go before everyone will be at that level. They'd have to literally double, triple, or even quintuple the autoattack damage of every weapon to get to that point.