ANet are going the wrong way with balancing

[Malus.2184]

Fiddling with CD and Ammo count is never going to solve the structural issue that the game has in PvP-environment with regards to overall balance, sure, iut'll alleviate some issues, however, that's more a case of the thing being too good. Anything else just makes the issue less pronounced, it does nothing to make it go away.

The only thing that would solve the issue on a structural level would be to give Grace Periods to every Noon and positive effect, You just got affected by X? That means that there will be Y-seconds be fore you can get that effect again.

That would, for example, instantly balance the Harbinger's Elixir of Ambition since getting every Boon under the sun would be dependent on having gotten none of them recently instead of merely getting a stack or a renewal.

Stealth would be affected by this, and Marked/Revealed would be removed as a general mechanic since the way to fix one broken mechanic is never to add another. This woud also balance the things that gives stealth. Short-duration Stealths are so much better for offensive purposes than long-duration stealth since one can attack and use another back to back without invoking the pentalty for attacking while in stealth. Balancing out short-duration stealths with a long Grace would instantly balance these with the long-duration Stealths. As annoying as it was I would rather have the 4-sec Stealth of Runes of the Trapper back instead of the 2-sec Stealth now since attacking before the 4-sec are up comes with a huge opportunity cost, whereas the 2-sec is something hardly noticable; that made the Rune set so much better for offensive purposes.

It would also instantly break the Boonball WvW meta since the question of "when to use" would be way more important than "how many can I use?" It would give the less used healers more breathing room as well since it would be of less importance how much they had of an ability and much more that they just had the ability at all.

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Malus.2184

[Sahne.6950]

7 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Fiddling with CD and Ammo count is never going to solve the structural issue that the game has in PvP-environment with regards to overall balance, sure, iut'll alleviate some issues, however, that's more a case of the thing being too good. Anything else just makes the issue less pronounced, it does nothing to make it go away.

The only thing that would solve the issue on a structural level would be to give Grace Periods to every Noon and positive effect, You just got affected by X? That means that there will be Y-seconds be fore you can get that effect again.

That would, for example, instantly balance the Harbinger's Elixir of Ambition since getting every Boon under the sun would be dependent on having gotten none of them recently instead of merely getting a stack or a renewal.

Stealth would be affected by this, and Marked/Revealed would be removed as a general mechanic since the way to fix one broken mechanic is never to add another. This woud also balance the things that gives stealth. Short-duration Stealths are so much better for offensive purposes than long-duration stealth since one can attack and use another back to back without invoking the pentalty for attacking while in stealth. Balancing out short-duration stealths with a long Grace would instantly balance these with the long-duration Stealths. As annoying as it was I would rahter have the 4-sec Stealth of Runes of the Trapper back instead of the 2-sec Stealth now sincer attacking before the 4-sec are up comes with a huge opportunity cost, whereas the 2-sec is something hardly noticable that madethe Rune set so much beter for offensive purposes.

It would also instantly break the Boonball WvW meta since the question of "when to use" would be way more important than "how many can I use?" It would give the less used healers more breathing room as well since it would be of less importance how much they had of an ability and much more that they just had the ability at all.

 

i cant wait to screw up my team, because i am playing ele.... at the start of the round i accidentally swapped to air.... so we all have grace period and cant give us swiftness when the round actually begins and the door opens.   CANT WAIT FOR THAT!

 

ohh!!! or Herald facets leading to completly unpredictable uptimes for boons... YEAH! GREAT IDEA! I LOVE IT!

 

giving your team 1 second of protection shortly before the midfight, just so we dont have it in the fight and instantly wipe.. resulting in my team being mad and going afk...    BRO YOUR IDEA IS SOO GOOD!

just imagine how random lowelo games will be, if a bad teammate can deny you personal boons, should he give you the same boon at a dumb time

Throwing a game never was this easy.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Hotride.2187]

I broke the wvw boonball meta by quitting wvw. Its really good.

As for perma boon uptime, I think it would work if boonrip was more readily available. Alas...

[Malus.2184]

1 minute ago, Sahne.6950 said:

i cant wait to screw up my team, because i am playing ele.... and i accidentally swapped to air.... so we all have grace period and cant give us swiftness when the round actually begins and the door opens.   CANT WAIT FOR THAT!

 

ohh!!! or Herald facets leading to completly unpredictable uptimes for boons... YEAH! GREAT IDEA! I LOVE IT!

 

giving your team 1 second of protection shortly before the midfight, just so we dont have it in the fight and instantly wipe.. resulting in my team being mad and going afk...    BRO YOUR IDEA IS SOO GOOD!

I never expressedthat it whould be active beoynd the active fight.

And that sounds like a boon Herald issue, If they give short duration Boons then giuve them a short duration Grace. It's a lot easier to adjust the Grace on an indivual basis than fiddle with cooldowns and such that just makes the problem less prevalent yet does nothing to actually fix it.

[Sahne.6950]

1 minute ago, Malus.2184 said:

I never expressedthat it whould be active beoynd the active fight.

And that sounds like a boon Herald issue, If they give short duration Boons then giuve them a short duration Grace. It's a lot easier to adjust the Grace on an indivual basis than fiddle with cooldowns and such that just makes the problem less prevalent yet does nothing to actually fix it.

you can not imagine how hard of a balance nightmare this would be.....

if they would implement it like that... gw2 pvp would die within 2 days.

 

how about they simply limit boonshare? or add more strips.....  

 

[Malus.2184]

Just now, Sahne.6950 said:

you can not imagine how hard of a balance nightmare this would be.....

if they would implement it like that... gw2 pvp would die within 2 days.

 

how about they simply limit boonshare? or add more strips.....  

 

That's a statememt instead of an argument and all you've stated is that you like it as it is now which is confusing progression and conservatism. If you want your statement to be an actual argument then you have to explain how this would kill PvP and what would make it a nightmare, because right now, what I see is that the current attempts at balancing are either creating that nightmare or doing nothing to solve the issue only make it sless severe.

And I want to PvP in a world where Spellbreakers lose their constant healing, where Harbingers are unable to pull an instant win by throwing an Elixir of Ambition, and where Specters are actually fightable instead of Shadowstepping all over the place with their Wells that also has AlAc.

[Sahne.6950]

6 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

If you want your statement to be an actual argument then you have to explain how this would kill PvP

 

17 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

i cant wait to screw up my team, because i am playing ele.... at the start of the round i accidentally swapped to air.... so we all have grace period and cant give us swiftness when the round actually begins and the door opens.   CANT WAIT FOR THAT!

 

ohh!!! or Herald facets leading to completly unpredictable uptimes for boons... YEAH! GREAT IDEA! I LOVE IT!

 

giving your team 1 second of protection shortly before the midfight, just so we dont have it in the fight and instantly wipe.. resulting in my team being mad and going afk...    BRO YOUR IDEA IS SOO GOOD!

just imagine how random lowelo games will be, if a bad teammate can deny you personal boons, should he give you the same boon at a dumb time

we already have a massive problem with throwing games and matchmanipulation... imagine you could actively hurt your teammates with dumb boonapplications......  

low elo would be a nightmare, because no one understands when to use what...

That is my argument.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Malus.2184]

3 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

 

we already have a massive problem with throwing games and matchmanipulation... imagine you could actively hurt your teammates with dumb boonapplications......  

That is my argument.

Thank you and that's actually an argument.

Is that a problem in ranked? If it's only a problem in Unranked then what's the issue? The outcome would be the same either way, lost match. The effective problem is exactly the same as it is now.

[Sahne.6950]

3 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Thank you and that's actually an argument.

Is that a problem in ranked? If it's only a problem in Unranked then what's the issue? The outcome would be the same either way, lost match. The effective problem is exactly the same as it is now.

it would add another layer of depth that would need to go into playing pvp. When do i apply my boons!? the room for actually hurting your teammates instead of helping is GIGANTIC. The barrier of entry for newerplayers... imagine the hate from "pros" when some newcomer kittens up their gameplay because he gave them... idk fury with some random trait that they cant even control... and now the "pro" cant use his own fury and thus is not landing the crits he needs... IMAGINE THE HATE IN THE CHAT....

it would be alot easier to simply limit boonshare in pvp. Some traits that make sense in pve are absolutely overtuned for pvp... those traits need to be looked at. For example: There is no need for harbingers to aoe-share their quickness when they are in shroud....

Edited September 20, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Sahne.6950]

5 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

is that a problem in ranked? If it's only a problem in Unranked then what's the issue? The outcome would be the same either way, lost match.

its a problem in ranked... i wish trevor was here and provide a textwall concerning wintrading and matchmanipulation xD

[Malus.2184]

2 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

it would add another layer of depth that would need to go into playing pvp. When do i apply my boons!? the room for actually hurting your teammates instead of helping is GIGANTIC. The barrier of entry for newerplayers... imagine the hate from "pros" when some newcomer kittens up their gameplay because he gave them... idk fury with some random trait that they cant even control... and now the "pro" cant use his own fury and thus is not landing the crits he needs... IMAGINE THE HATE IN THE CHAT....

it would be alot easier to simply limit boonshare in pvp.

That sounds more like an Unraked than a Ranked issue, to be honest and I think it would be better solved with a sign saying what you can expect in Unranked of new players/players learning their spec/build. I would rather make that change on a social level since it would structureally addres the issue of players behaving toxicly. Will there be people who act that way anyway? Yes. There will always be people who ignore context, that's just how it is.

[Malus.2184]

1 minute ago, Sahne.6950 said:

its a problem in ranked... i wish trevor was here and provide a textwall concerning wintrading and matchmanipulation xD

How would it exerbate the issue then? The match is still thrown and manipulated, nothing has changed about that, other than it mightbe over faster.

[Sahne.6950]

3 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

That sounds more like an Unraked than a Ranked issue, to be honest and I think it would be better solved with a sign saying what you can expect in Unranked of new players/players learning their spec/build.

you sound so innocent its funny 😄

you are kinda new are you?  like no offense 😄 im just curious.

 

Just have some trust: giving people the power to screw over your teammates will have a bad outcome! Also this system is WAYYY to random with all the boons that are just proccing thru various traits. Sometimes you cant controll when a boon will procc... sometimes this boon is even shared aoe... and i can guarantee you more ofthen than not the timing will be off and you miss the boon when you actually need it.

With the current traits in place... your idea is GODAWFUL.

The idea makes sense... somewhat... i understand the goal... but the current system doesnt allow it.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Malus.2184]

Just now, Sahne.6950 said:

you sound so innocent its funny 😄

you are kinda new are you?  like no offense 😄 im just curious.

No, I jsut have an eduation where this sort of stuff is basic knowledge. Nothing can solve toxicity. My post even acknowledges this in that there will be some who ignore it. And if nothing can solve the issue then the only thing that can help is the incredibly basic thing of reminding players what they're about to enter.

[Sahne.6950]

Just now, Malus.2184 said:

No, I jsut have an eduation where this sort of stuff is basic knowledge. Nothing can solve toxicity. My post even acknowledges this in that there will be some who ignore it. And if nothing can solve the issue then the only thing that can help is the incredibly basic thing of reminding players what they're about to enter.

you are focusing on the toxic part...

 

IT IS TO RANDOM. There is things proccing without you being able to controll it. If those random things proccing would actually prevent you from actively applying a boon when you need it..... It will feel clunky af. Now imagine you actually screw over your teammates with this aswell..

[Malus.2184]

2 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

you are focusing on the toxic part...

 

IT IS TO RANDOM. There is things proccing without you being able to controll it. If those random things proccing would actually prevent you from actively applying a boon when you need it..... It will feel clunky af. Now imagine you actually screw over your teammates with this aswell..

Then give those things a short Grace Period, they usually have a short duration to match. It's just to avoid them getting spammed on top of each other endlessly. A Good example is the Spellbreaker build that just keeps healing because it applies Might to ítself in pracctically every swing.

[Knote.2904]

Let's just be real here, the boon/condition system in this game never really was designed with scale in mind. Number of players * the faster the combat gets from powercreep * boon/condition/strip/cleanse power creep and arms race * bad UI == the whole system kind of falls apart imo. 

[Bazsi.2734]

Ah yes, A-net is doing bad balance... proceeds to make the hottest take this forum has seen in like a month. 
Just one example to make you see how NOTSMART this is: Guardian greatsword autoattack chain ends with Wrathful_Strike. It grants you one might. You can keep up that "no might for X seconds" debuff on you for forever just by attacking the enemy. Did you even think about this before typing it out?
 

10 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

That would, for example, instantly balance the Harbinger's Elixir of Ambition since getting every Boon under the sun would be dependent on having gotten none of them recently instead of merely getting a stack or a renewal.

 

Hmm... no you defintely haven't. Just wait 3-4 seconds for these debuffs to go away(dont stand on your teammates for that incredibly long amount of time) and open a burst with EoA, 100% efficiency. Your proposed change would definitely kill the normal flow of any teamfight, popping cooldowns reactively to enemy actions would have random effect(as your stab/prot just gets denied by game design)... but this braindead 1 button burst, now it wouldn't be hindered much.

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Bazsi.2734

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Boons too powerful? Increase boon rips!

[oscuro.9720]

13 hours ago, Hotride.2187 said:

As for perma boon uptime, I think it would work if boonrip was more readily available. Alas...I broke the wvw boonball meta by quitting wvw. Its really good.

 

2 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Boons too powerful? Increase boon rips!

This is most likely the best answer, if you want good gameplay. Not certainly, but probably. 

[Malus.2184]

12 hours ago, Bazsi.2734 said:

Ah yes, A-net is doing bad balance... proceeds to make the hottest take this forum has seen in like a month. 
Just one example to make you see how NOTSMART this is: Guardian greatsword autoattack chain ends with Wrathful_Strike. It grants you one might. You can keep up that "no might for X seconds" debuff on you for forever just by attacking the enemy. Did you even think about this before typing it out?
 

 

Hmm... no you defintely haven't. Just wait 3-4 seconds for these debuffs to go away(dont stand on your teammates for that incredibly long amount of time) and open a burst with EoA, 100% efficiency. Your proposed change would definitely kill the normal flow of any teamfight, popping cooldowns reactively to enemy actions would have random effect(as your stab/prot just gets denied by game design)... but this braindead 1 button burst, now it wouldn't be hindered much.

 

Your argument assumes that the Grace period would be an universal constant. I've expressed before that it would be dependant on the source of the Boon, and it could also depend on the type of the Boon.
Might has limited impact until it gets to a certain point of the stack. The Boons with a stack count has a limited impact. The Boons that have a duration increase generally have a massive impact on actual gameplay and should definitely be limited in how often they could be applied because right now, some Professions can apply them to have more or less a constant uptime, even in PvP where there's no Boon Duration attribute.

[Malus.2184]

9 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

 

This is most likely the best answer, if you want good gameplay. Not certainly, but probably. 

It seems instictively like it will. However, Boonstrip will take a Utility Skill slot while there are Boons that are connected to weapon abilities. There's afaik also no priority system, Boonstrip simply takes the Boons that were applied the latest. So on it's own it sould solve nothing.

Boonstrip would have to be given a priority system so it Boonstrip would take specific Boons first. This has its own problem. If it took Protection first and the target has muyltiple sources of Protection and Boonstrip is used on them, then it'll be on CD and the Protection can just be instantly reaplied.

So while this is good instinctively, it solves nothing contextually, it only lesens the issue instead of removing it.

[Sahne.6950]

31 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Boonstrip will take a Utility Skill slot while there are Boons that are connected to weapon abilities.

why do strips have to be a utilityskill!?

For example Necro has traits that turn specific skills into boonstrips. For example your shroud 2 skill can be traited to strip boons. Boonstrips can be weaponabilitys, professionmechanics, traits, utilityskills, yada yada....

36 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Your argument assumes that the Grace period would be an universal constant. I've expressed before that it would be dependant on the source of the Boon, and it could also depend on the type of the Boon.

the level of depth and understanding that all of this requires is INSANE. will the durations be unified? for example fury has X graceperiod and swiftness has Y. Or will it we durationbased, meaning a 5 second boon will have a 5 second grace period, and a 2 second boon will have 2 second grace....  or will it be both? a 2 second stabiltiy will have X second grace and a 7 second fury will have Y second grace.....  There is so many things you need to learn to even have a chance to do the right decision.

Either way you need to know all of the possible boons that your teammates have. Because how can you make the right decision if you dont know what your teammate is running.... you see that he is guardian and wait for him to use his stability... but he plays a weird build and doesnt have it.... so you both just wait for eachother and no one uses it... you both get CCed and die....

You also need to coordinate EVERY POOPY BOON! Because 2 guys activating protection at the same time would be a waste...... So you end in a situation where you HAVE TO BE IN VOICECOM, to not waste your boons......

Do you not see, that your suggestion is beyond stupid?

 

"It's just to avoid them getting spammed on top of each other endlessly. A Good example is the Spellbreaker build that just keeps healing because it applies Might to ítself in pracctically every swing"  " I want to PvP in a world where Spellbreakers lose their constant healing"

also.... if you name Spb one more time as a example of "boonspam and crazy sustain"..... i have to kindly ask you to uninstall the game. I mean... your asking for Spellbreaker nerfs in disguise.... THIS CANT BE SERIOUS!

Edited September 21, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Malus.2184]

1 hour ago, Sahne.6950 said:

For example Necro has traits that turn specific skills into boonstrips. For example your shroud 2 skill can be traited to strip boons. Boonstrips can be weaponabilitys, professionmechanics, traits, utilityskills, yada yada...

That's even worse as it means the Skill would have to be saved until an opportune moment or used contextually in which case the Boonstrip risks being wasted. Multi-purpose skills are bad for balance because they end us doing too much. Ecamples would be Shift Signet which does so much that it's stupid and Specter Wells with Alac that are so multi-purpose that reducing them in abilities will render the Specter unplayable in PvP-environments. You're unable to balance multi-purpose skills properly by tewaking their numbers. The only way you can properly balance them is by tweaking how often what they provide can be available. If Specter could only use the  Shadowstep functionality of the Wells, for example, every 10 seconds it would make them viable as Roamers in both WvW and PvP while reducing their insane ability to kite and it would also make the  more viable as support healers since they could use their Wells without constantly ending up on the front lines.

1 hour ago, Sahne.6950 said:

the level of depth and understanding that all of this requires is INSANE. will the durations be unified? for example fury has X graceperiod and swiftness has Y. Or will it we durationbased, meaning a 5 second boon will have a 5 second grace period, and a 2 second boon will have 2 second grace....  or will it be both? a 2 second stabiltiy will have X second grace and a 7 second fury will have Y second grace.....  There is so many things you need to learn to even have a chance to do the right decision.

The Durations of Boons in PvP under a Grace system would make sense. Collaterally Applied Boons have a short duration and an equally short Grace. Intentionally placed Boons would have a longer duration and an equally longer Grace. While this would remove some profession identity it would also prevent match-up where you know you have no chance other than hoping you get backup. And I think at the end of the day people would rather have that since when it comes down to it their thoughts are never on  the unique identetity of who killed them and more of a Soldier's Prayer in how to deal with them.

And there would still be some Profession/Spec identity since people can adjus their builds according to what role they provide. A Guardian built for Support will still have more support than a Warrior built for damage. This is just an example.

Likewise,a Guardian would have difference support capabilitiesthan a Specter. Again an example to demostrate the reality.

And yes, you'd hgave to coordinate. That's the entire point. People will have to show actual skill on the lower ranks/unranked instead of just taking a spray-and-pray approach and at the higher ranks. Same with WvW in general. And those at the higher ranks often talks about how much better they are, so they should be able to easily adjust, unless it's all just hot air and Dunning Kruger talking.

And you should never need X to solve a general problem a´since if you lack X then Y will be a massive problem. It's a lot better, and more difficult, to solce Y on a systemic and structural level.

Also, your arguments against such a concept are just you moving goal posts each time I give a reasonable answer that takes into account what you're said. 

This post of yours I reply to start off with a valid criticism that it would be too difficult. And then goes into the emotional statement that the various Professions/Builds would feel the same, and ends with the totally unhinged belief that this is really a  Spellbreaker stealth nerf.

[Swagg.9236]

On 9/20/2022 at 3:08 PM, Malus.2184 said:

Fiddling with CD and Ammo count is never going to solve the structural issue that the game has in PvP-environment with regards to overall balance, sure, iut'll alleviate some issues, however, that's more a case of the thing being too good. Anything else just makes the issue less pronounced, it does nothing to make it go away.

The only thing that would solve the issue on a structural level would be to give Grace Periods to every Noon and positive effect, You just got affected by X? That means that there will be Y-seconds be fore you can get that effect again.

That would, for example, instantly balance the Harbinger's Elixir of Ambition since getting every Boon under the sun would be dependent on having gotten none of them recently instead of merely getting a stack or a renewal.

Stealth would be affected by this, and Marked/Revealed would be removed as a general mechanic since the way to fix one broken mechanic is never to add another. This woud also balance the things that gives stealth. Short-duration Stealths are so much better for offensive purposes than long-duration stealth since one can attack and use another back to back without invoking the pentalty for attacking while in stealth. Balancing out short-duration stealths with a long Grace would instantly balance these with the long-duration Stealths. As annoying as it was I would rather have the 4-sec Stealth of Runes of the Trapper back instead of the 2-sec Stealth now since attacking before the 4-sec are up comes with a huge opportunity cost, whereas the 2-sec is something hardly noticable; that made the Rune set so much better for offensive purposes.

It would also instantly break the Boonball WvW meta since the question of "when to use" would be way more important than "how many can I use?" It would give the less used healers more breathing room as well since it would be of less importance how much they had of an ability and much more that they just had the ability at all.

 

The term you're looking for is "diminishing returns," and it is indeed one of the things that this game probably would've benefited from implementing.  Unfortunately, GW2 is coded by 1-year interns and supported by whales and low-effort streamers lol.  The people you are trying to convince would never agree to putting in any work toward this issue.

Edited September 21, 2022 by Swagg.9236