What is or What should be Core Concepts of Balance in the Game?

[Noko Anon.9154]

The solution always seems simple, but the problems start appearing when other perspectives enter the discussion.

For example, I believe a correct, but not easy, solution is to fully outline what core classes should be able to do. Fractals and WvW only have two roles, but Strikes / Raids and PvP have four: Damage, Support, Tanking / Bunkering, and Kiting / Roaming. Have four of the core trait lines focus primarily on one of these things, while the obvious fifth line improves the class’ mechanics. However, it needs to be a reasonable focus. A warrior, aesthetically, shouldn’t be able to kite, but it should be able to roam. A thief, aesthetically, shouldn’t be able to tank, but it should be able to bunker.

After determining what each tree should focus on (with some talents splashed in so they can work in conjunction with other core trait lines besides the fifth one that improves class mechanics), then have your elite specs focus solely on one of those end-game roles. Admit that elite specs are meant to be better core classes, but design the elites so they are only better than core in two avenues. Make a chronomancer have such phenomenal support and self-sustain that core can’t compete, but at the cost of being worse than core with damage and mobility. Meanwhile, give mirage better mobility and self-sustain, but worse damage and support than core, and give virtuoso better damage and mobility, but worse support and self-sustain. Let the trade-off from core not be a handicap on class mechanics as it has been, but a loss of general versatility to precise end-game specialization. It would fully define elite specs at the same time, and would make it easier to adjust the values of their own skills once we know what an elite spec is meant to accomplish.

Using necromancer as an example:

• Spite: Primarily Roaming
• Curses: Primarily Damage
• Death Magic: Primarily Bunkering
• Blood Magic: Primarily Support
• Soul Reaping: General improvement
• Reaper: Primarily Roaming
• Scourge: Primarily Support
• Harbinger: Primarily Damage

Each trait line has a primary focus to it, with the ability to splash in other traits in the line that complement other avenues of play. A scourge, for example, could also have some improvements for bunkering. Overall, compared to core, it would have much better support, some better self-sustain, but worse damage and mobility.

But, then the obvious questions comes in to play. “What kind of damage is ‘damage’?” “What kind of support is ‘support’?” “What exactly is tanking / bunkering?” “How do we define kiting / roaming?” That goes outside of the discussion, and I’ve already written so much… But I only share these thoughts because I imagine that you, the reader, have already found quite a few problems with my ideas, which goes back to my actual main point: The solution may seem simple, but there are always problems with them that we ourselves may not notice.

[Dr Meta.3158]

Theres a few core tenants to balance around.

1. Damage

2. Survivability 

3. Mobility

4. Support

You should be able to build for 2/4. Any more than that and its a balance issue. With these combinations you can do things such as

1. Bruiser: damage/survivability 

2. Healer: support/survivability

3. Roamer: damage/mobility

4. Duelist: survivability/mobility

5. Teamfighter: damage/support

6. Decapper: mobility/survivability

7. +1/Assister: mobility/damage or mobility/support

Any of the roles can handle the other by leveraging into their strengths but one is not clearly better than the other overall, just shine in different positions. Again the issue is when you can do 1 or 3 or 4 is when you're underpowered, overpowered, or broken respectively.

One example is when scrapper was designed to be a bruiser (damage/survivability) but then decided to give it strong mobility tools years ago to then have damage/survivability and mobility. Where mobility was a way to escape the juggernaut power of this class, then it could catch you easily and beat you down without taking much damage in return.

I think overall the ideal is to ensure all 9 classes, through even elites if necessary (like thief), should be able to hit all four aspects along with being able to hit two of those aspects with a build; no more or less than that should be possible with any given build. 

In short, look at the all the core and elite classes and ask, can they fulfill two aspects? If less,they need a buff in one or both aspects that makes sense for that class/elite; if more, they need a nerf in the aspects that don't make sense for that class/elite. Easy as that.

[Noc Rubu.5804]

On 10/6/2022 at 4:36 PM, Urud.4925 said:

They also went from some class identity to give access to important boons to a lot of classes now, in the name of accessibility for high-end content.

This is a BIG mistake as I have stated before, they did this in Everquest, then it lost members because (holding up two hands pinching my fingers) Balancing gave everyone the same buffs, the one class was the only one with speed buff, str and hybrid heals.  Later everyone had it.  People quit playing the game, they gave away their core individuality to everyone.  They did it in WoW, fail.  They are now doing it here.  Fail.   I don't need to say LETs see what happens, already been there and got several T-shirts. 20 years worth. Let's not fail Anet, make each class special. <--- 

[Noko Anon.9154]

The problem with making each class special is that alacrity and quickness, for better or worse, determines who gets invited to PvE content. If only chronomancers had alacrity to share, for example, wouldn’t that severely handicap the game state?

[Noc Rubu.5804]

14 minutes ago, Noko Anon.9154 said:

The problem with making each class special is that alacrity and quickness, for better or worse, determines who gets invited to PvE content. If only chronomancers had alacrity to share, for example, wouldn’t that severely handicap the game state?

Nope, I don't think so.  EVERYone doesn't need to provide Alac, Quickness, Barrier, on and on... the game is getting ruined.  

These are just thoughts, imagine if:

Thieves only had invis.

Rangers had the long shot bow or rifle and Traps.  They are Rangers after all.

Guardians were like the original Paladins.  SAVE lives skills

Dragon Hunter had... whatever haha

Rev, I liked the Harold Dragon buffs - 

Warrior - Should be the Main Tank, period.  Takes the damage, does damage, short range and keeps ticking.

Mez - Alacrity, illusions

Mage, ports, conjuring what else.

Druids - One with Nature, heals

(There could be several variations in the different classes all leaning towards accomplishing the same goals. You could still have a Mage healer but not the same skills as a druid)

Quickness... whomever Anet wants, but just one class

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2022 by Soupeod.5714

[AliamRationem.5172]

7 hours ago, Soupeod.5714 said:

Nope, I don't think so.  EVERYone doesn't need to provide Alac, Quickness, Barrier, on and on... the game is getting ruined.  

These are just thoughts, imagine if:

Thieves only had invis.

Rangers had the long shot bow or rifle and Traps.  They are Rangers after all.

Guardians were like the original Paladins.  SAVE lives skills

Dragon Hunter had... whatever haha

Rev, I liked the Harold Dragon buffs - 

Warrior - Should be the Main Tank, period.  Takes the damage, does damage, short range and keeps ticking.

Mez - Alacrity, illusions

Mage, ports, conjuring what else.

Druids - One with Nature, heals

(There could be several variations in the different classes all leaning towards accomplishing the same goals. You could still have a Mage healer but not the same skills as a druid)

Quickness... whomever Anet wants, but just one class

 

 

 

You're being very vague on the details that matter.  The question is: What are you going to give each class that not only defines them and sets them apart from the others, but is of roughly equal importance to quickness/alacrity?  That's the problem with unique effects.  If, for instance, you give thieves "invisibility", well, invisibility isn't useful outside of dungeon skips.  So why bring a thief when you need that spot to gain a more useful effect?

They could get rid of alacrity/quickness or minimize their importance, but then we run into the issue of there being little or no critical support outside of healing.  And you only need so many healers.  So is everyone just "DPS" then?  Does that make individual classes feel more unique or less?

[Noko Anon.9154]

25 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

 So is everyone just "DPS" then?  Does that make individual classes feel more unique or less?

One of the problems with balancing is that GW2 was intended to be a game where everyone is DPS. There weren’t supposed to be tanks or healers in PvE, which is why everyone has dodges (to mitigate damage and avoid tanks) and a self-heal (so a healer isn’t necessary). GW2 in its current state does have tanks and healers in PvE, and taunt, though quite rare, does exist. This could be a point of contention behind the scenes. Should the game remain focused on the original intent of the dev team in 2012, or should the dev team adapt based on the changes the community has created from the tools given to them?

As for class uniqueness, there has to be some overlap somewhere. If a player doesn’t like mesmer, they shouldn’t feel obligated to play one to provide alacrity. At the same time, though, the other individual is correct that giving too many classes alacrity is a great way to homogenize classes and ruin the game state.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Noko Anon.9154
Clarification

[prototypedragon.1406]

Scrap the boons and lower all weapon and skill coefficients to the same level and test how each class functions in their selective areas based upon the specs or primary damage( power, critical hits, condition damage) type/ support type (healing or boon pulses/cleansing). From there observe the maximum power damage that could be achieved with soldiers stats, then the maximum for crit damage gear such as berserker, and Dire for condition damage. Then test the maximum damage reduction that can be achieved with the highest amount of toughness. Balance condi clears with that of conditions that can be applied with conditions being able to over run condi clear by 3 additional conditions but have a limit to how many types of conditions can be placed on a enemy player. Balance healing power so that it can keep up with the condition damage except if poison is applied make strike damage reduced by 10percent for every class that reaches more then 500 healing power. From there sprinkle in the boons  that can last at most 6 seconds with full boon duration where they may be needed but make sure to allow every class to have access to boon removal abilities that they can use. Adjust traits and weapons that are outdated so they are encouraged to be taken as options rather then just fillers covered in cobwebs for flair. Then if runes or sigils are overturned adjust as needed. So yeah pretty much start from scratch and develop a vision for future balancing without distractions and unknown possibilities.

[AliamRationem.5172]

34 minutes ago, Noko Anon.9154 said:

One of the problems with balancing is that GW2 was intended to be a game where everyone is DPS. There weren’t supposed to be tanks or healers in PvE, which is why everyone has dodges (to mitigate damage and avoid tanks) and a self-heal (so a healer isn’t necessary). GW2 in its current state does have tanks and healers in PvE, and taunt, though quite rare, does exist. This could be a point of contention behind the scenes. Should the game remain focused on the original intent of the dev team in 2012, or should the dev team adapt based on the changes the community has created from the tools given to them?

As for class uniqueness, there has to be some overlap somewhere. If a player doesn’t like mesmer, they shouldn’t feel obligated to play one to provide alacrity. At the same time, though, the other individual is correct that giving too many classes alacrity is a great way to homogenize classes and ruin the game state.

With alacrity/quickness they've carved out two distinct support roles in hybrid DPS or healer forms.  I'd argue that's better than having simply healer and DPS.

What if we had more role-defining effects?  What would that look like?  Currently, we have 2 out of 5 spots per group dedicated to support roles.  What if it were 3? 4? 5?  Would that be better?  And how would classes compete for those roles?  Would it be a standardized boon like quickness/alacrity or unique buffs like spotter?

In my opinion, adding more of these roles is not necessarily a benefit.  First, there's some freedom in having 3 generic DPS spots to a group.  Anyone can play DPS and they don't compete directly with the two support roles.  Changing more of these roles over to support would place them in competition.  This is especially true if we go the route of unique buffs, as by definition those buffs are not equal and some will be favored over others.

In that scenario, either you make these unique buffs critical like quickness/alacrity or you make them more of a take-it-or-leave-it side-benefit, in which case you haven't really changed anything, have you?  Those roles aren't really roles.  They're just DPS with a minor utility benefit.

I get it.  Homogenization sounds bad.  Who wants to be the same as everyone else?  But I think the reality of balancing gameplay around making everyone unique while having them compete for the same roles doesn't work out in practice.

 

 

 

[otto.5684]

On 10/6/2022 at 12:09 AM, Darkvramp.5640 said:

BIIIIIG QUESTION.

Hopefully some non trolls will answer.

It doesn't take an essay to define what your philosophy is, just 5 or 6 core words, though the essay defines what said words mean in relation to your actions.

Identity

This game you play as a unique class, and it should have its own identity.

Centrality

Balance is about keeping the beam from not toppling off the fulcrum. By pushing towards some sort of center and not having so many outliers that do sooo much to be meta. If everything is in the center, everything can be meta.

Automation

If it can be automated that it probably is not good for the game.

Misuse, or lack of use(sometimes overuse)

If people are not using something, or not using something right it needs to change. And sometimes if people overuse something because of over Balance or other factors.

 

The reason I am talking about such topic is because the current balance team feels like they don't have  ANY CORE CONCEPT to Balance the game like this.

I'm hoping some conversation will get thier attention.

What are your opinions?

 

 

 

 

Design and identity precedes balance. 
 

We definitely need to have an median we balance around. Though, this is harder outside of dps output. And in pvp this is even harder.

 

Automation… is not always bad. IMO, if something can be automated then it should be. That does not mean that everything should be on cruise control, but trying to create artifical difficulty by making one step a three step, only makes the game frustrating. 

[RAZOR.7246]

As long as you have stability and aegis that strong on 1 class only, you're never going to balance it. It would be a complete nightmare to balance other classes by trying to slap some on there without extensive knowledge on how the balance would be affected. It's not going to happen. What the balance needs is a simplification of the process. I'm of the opinion that the buffs from stab and aegis should be individualized for ease of balance. The ultimate goal of using such buffs is for players to avoid the effects of certain mechanics and if you're playing with a proper FB for example, you will have these buffs up regardless. Both these buffs should be removed and a standardized defiance bar added to players where defiance can be spent for 1 use of block. Any buffs around that should focus on things like speed of recovery for such a bar. 

 

There's no point kidding ourselves. There is a tradeoff between ease of use and strength of a class. Even if you buff the damage of a specific class, most players are just going to avoid it if it's too difficult to play based on how they can manage mechanics and survive primarily. This is exactly what is happening now. Top 2 DPS according to SC are Bladesworn and Untamed and you almost never see them or never see them played to their full potential. Their damage isn't the problem here. There's no point for the casual player to use them because there's no reward. There is no point to buffing damage based on the difficulty of a class because this doesn't factor into a more casual player's thinking. I for one have never seen a proper untamed in a pug and only seen stronger bladesworns in stronger groups that most players will have no access to and in very situational scenarios. These kinds of changes only affect top end players, the <0.01%. All players can only play at a level that their skill allows and for the vast majority of these, classes with complex rotations are out of the question.  Players are never going to get better just because you want to force the issue and insist on complexity being the only source of reward. They will just play at a lower level which would gate them out of certain content. Such a strategy hurts everyone.

 

If there's a baseline across all classes that is established, where a casual player can play at a viable level with a simplified rotation, then you will see a lot more usage of all the classes. Extensive usage of Mechanist, FB, Scourge show that there's a massive demand for such things by players outside the top 0.01%. Only once these baselines that give viability to different classes at a fundamental level have been established, can you look at the uniqueness of certain class mechanics and balancing reward against complexity. At a fundamental level, the class needs to be playable in most scenarios across all skill levels for a player to consider using it. These drawbacks that they tried to add in EoD are misjudged because they do not have a platform to build from and result in a clunky experience that does not feel rewarding to a player just because they can't play at a certain level.   

Edited October 14, 2022 by RAZOR.7246

[Hashberry.4510]

Much of this tension comes from needing access to the pug meta. That is a player made problem and when the devs try to fix that these games go down hill, as seen in WoW and others.

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, Hashberry.4510 said:

Much of this tension comes from needing access to the pug meta. That is a player made problem and when the devs try to fix that these games go down hill, as seen in WoW and others.

The PUG meta may not be a 100% accurate reflection of the state of balance, but it's a good enough approximation.  Classes that overperform get picked more often.  It's not a coincidence that specs like firebrand and mechanist have much higher representation than any other spec.

[Gwynnion.7364]

39 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

The PUG meta may not be a 100% accurate reflection of the state of balance, but it's a good enough approximation.  Classes that overperform get picked more often.  It's not a coincidence that specs like firebrand and mechanist have much higher representation than any other spec.

Right.  It's a more useful measure than most because it reflects what people are actually playing and think are worth playing as opposed to theoretical DPS benchmarks.  I also think the importance of roles is overstated by more skilled players who are very concerned with efficiency and group composition compared to most, who just want something that works well and will get them through the content.  I definitely don't think roles need to be further atomized as it will only pigeonhole classes into overly specific niches. 

I'd rather the devs (re)emphasize certain classes' strengths and unique features, bring up underperforming and hard to play classes, and let things shake themselves out instead of trying to artificially manage who gets to be meta over the players' wishes.  Because that keeps producing a situation where such-and-such class is seen as overperforming and gets nerfed, preventing the preferred and meta class lineup from ever really changing.

[Noc Rubu.5804]

7 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

With alacrity/quickness they've carved out two distinct support roles in hybrid DPS or healer forms.  I'd argue that's better than having simply healer and DPS.

What if we had more role-defining effects?  What would that look like?  Currently, we have 2 out of 5 spots per group dedicated to support roles.  What if it were 3? 4? 5?  Would that be better?  And how would classes compete for those roles?  Would it be a standardized boon like quickness/alacrity or unique buffs like spotter?

You seem to be stuck in PVE this is how many we currently have role.   My FB gives quickness too. <-- example  If your moroon leaders set up groups that way, its not Anet or anyone else problem but the people who are leading you and setting it up that way.  Understand?

[AliamRationem.5172]

11 minutes ago, Soupeod.5714 said:

You seem to be stuck in PVE this is how many we currently have role.   My FB gives quickness too. <-- example  If your moroon leaders set up groups that way, its not Anet or anyone else problem but the people who are leading you and setting it up that way.  Understand?

Sorry, no.  I don't understand.  Your response is incoherent.

[Felices Bladewing.3914]

technically in an ideal scenario every profession should bring something really strong to the table that the others can‘t or are significant worse or require massive tradeoffs in doing so the different specs should focus on different aspects of those core-features and the elite specs would be bridges between those profession features.

[Ruisenior.6342]

Anet should bring multiclass and stop messing around with the game. People is that lazy that they want their pathetic builds to fit every role, so multiclass might help.

Or even better make all boons baseline at max stacks and let people just press 1 and enjoy their gaming expirience

Edited October 15, 2022 by Ruisenior.6342

[solemace.8427]

keeping it short if anet wants to balance their game which is designed around and makes use of modern server technology to allow for skill expression through high apm skill combos and fast reactions but also want to create classes or specs that are accessible, then they need to set a few base lines before they push into balance. Personally I think the community feedback they use is a pretty good start and using community resources as a tool is pretty smart. 

 

What should a support be able to do?

What do high skill dps numbers look like? 

What should a jack of all trades spec be capable of? 

How do we make an accessible class that doesn't steamroll the meta?