Recent Balance Reflections

[Malus.2184]

I've been doing some reflection on the general game balance in GW2 compared to actual game play. And I believe that there are some structural issues that needs to be adressed before any specific issues with various specs are adressed.

1. The Melee vs Ranged dispiraty. Ranged doing the exact same damage as melee makes no sense as it means that ranged can avoid certain mechanics while still dealing full damage. Likewise in group content they have to stay stacked with the group in order to get Boons and effectively have to be in melee range, and then doing less damage in that aspect would just favour melee since they would be the obvious choice to bring. Thinking on this the conclusion of how this could be solved in away that game play-wise makes both equally viable would be to give ranged a Treshold over which they deal reduced damage. Ranged would still be objectively better than melee, though the difference would be far less. This would also be a chance to make the Deadeye unique. In their Kneel they get full damage above a Treshold and reduced damage within since sniping is more difficult the closer a target is.

This was inspired by the Mechanist who's damage drops drastically once you get over the Treshold under which a lot of their damage increases works. While the Mechanist is good up-close it's objectively worse at range.

2. PvP and WvW. More specifically the Boonball meta. ANet has been trying to adjust the duration of individual skills and traits as well as their cooldowns. I believe that this just leads to an eternal spiral that works in perpetuity since there will always be adjustments needed, an example in Druid in PvP and WvW that's now really dificult to kill.

The problem is structural with Boon application, and especially the duration of the Boons via Boon-sharing being too impactful. I think that in PvP and WvW the issue would be solved with a general structural change whereby all Boons worked similar how Might works. The duration of a Boon is never added to the remaining, instead, it replaces the duration of the old one if it's shorter. People would have to use their boon strategically instead of just blasting.

3. Stealth in PvP and WvW. Stealth in these games modes are absolutely overpowering if used well. Again ANet has fiddled with CD and duration and it really solves nothing, it just changes the purpose of the Stealth. An example is Rune of the Trapper 6/6 bonus. The four second duration was primarely defensive in nature unless you wanted to trigger the penalty for breaking Stealth. The two second duration has made this application offensive in nature as people can attack from the Stealth shortly after applying it and then apply a new one without any penalty. In WvW ANet has tried to apply the Revealed thing, however, negating one OP effect with another just makes the first extra OP if you've no way of dealing with it as there are no counters then other than being lucky, Engineers with Goggles excepted.

From my pov the issue is once again structural. Stealth is really good and the issue is how often you can enter it. I believe that the issue would be solved by removing the Revealed effect on Stealth completely and instead apply a "Grace" period where the player after exiting Stealth would be unable to enter it again while it lasted. The duration would be dependent on what type of Stealth it was, and again the Deadeye Elite would remove the "Grace" when used. Another way this could be applied was that while the "Grace" was active a Specter would be unable to Shadow Step to a Well as well as being unable to Stealth, they would get the application of Alacrity applied to them directly instead if they had that trait.

While GW2 has many balance issues from my pov some of them are general instead of specific and applying specific adjustments in order to solve general problems will never work.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Malus.2184

[Nash.2681]

23 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

[...]

This was inspired by the Mechanist who's damage drops drastically once you get over the Treshold under which a lot of their damage increases works. While the Mechanist is good up-close it's objectively worse at range.

[...]

Out of all possible examples you pick that one utterly broken spec, that under any circumstances is still able to produce more than sufficent to almost top-tier results with low- to no play intensity? Are you serious?

[Noir.8561]

About the 1st problem , what about if the boss around him (400yards) ,could  "almost" duplicate the Might Stacks ?(up to 50% more extra stacks -different UI stack  , based on melee/range you have  equipped )

That way it will promote people to adopt a balanced mindset , where a combo of ranged/melee weapons will be appreciated , rather the mentality of "of only melee" .

GW2 can be a lot more flexible than other mmos , with the ability to Switch weapons in combat . So normally there shouldn't be a debate for "melee vs ranged"

Something I forgot: But in the same time , there should be a backfire in order to prevent "only melee trains" from occurring again . Such as for how long you benefit for those extra 420 stats (12 extra stacks  x 35 Might) , the healing/shielding on you is reduced for the same amount , or come up in the second phase of the battle (50%)

Edited October 7, 2022 by Noir.8561

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

If anything we need less stack-and-whack, not more.

 

One of the biggest critiques of this game in group content is that you're required to play melee to get heals and boons, which doesn't happen in any other game. Its not even a good combat mechanic, its just because support skills are needlessly crippled with incredibly short distances (sometimes 240 or less!). This also neccetates that supports constantly put themselves in danger for the good of the party, and then get blamed when something goes wrong when they have to juggle their own survival and everyone else's at the same time.

 

Sure, it seems good now that we're used to it, but there was a time before we all became numb to it when players constantly detested the stacking meta, and begged for years for the devs to change it, especially since many encounters don't actually favor either stacking or melee (though a few, like Boneskinner, definitely do); its just needed for effective support play.

 

This is one of the reasons Machinist is so strong, between providing their own support and doing massive damage from range, they have the most effective positioning options in the game, able to weave in and out of fights as they see fit without losing either damage or healing. Compare this to a class like Elementalist, who always has to be at ground zero to accomplish anything at all, hence the downstate meta.

 

Their most powerful build literally revolved around being inside the enemy.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Malus.2184]

30 minutes ago, Nash.2681 said:

Out of all possible examples you pick that one utterly broken spec, that under any circumstances is still able to produce more than sufficent to almost top-tier results with low- to no play intensity? Are you serious?

Because the concept still works even if you think the spec is broken. Take things that works from things that you think are bad. That how progress works.

[Nash.2681]

5 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Because the concept still works even if you think the spec is broken. Take things that works from things that you think are bad. That how progress works.

You say that Mechanist is objectively worse at range. If you mean "mechanist played at 1200 range away from the squad is worse then played within boon range" then yes, it is. Like every other class, no need to mention a specific one.

On the other hand, mechanist played at 1200 range away from the squad still performs absurdly good and by far better than any other spec. So bringing Mechanist as an example for "melee vs. range" issues is just completely off.

Edit: oh, and I don't think the spec is completely broken, it objectively is. A few people on the forums still trying to defend that mess for whatever reasons don't change that.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Nash.2681

[Malus.2184]

7 minutes ago, Nash.2681 said:

You say that Mechanist is objectively worse at range. If you mean "mechanist played at 1200 range away from the squad is worse then played within boon range" then yes, it is. Like every other class, no need to mention a specific one.

There are several traits that increases DPS that need the character to be below 450 Units at the lowest. These traits increase your DPS by a lot, even if they had all the Boons at 1200 units away they would be objectively worse than one who was below 450 units away from the target who also had all Boons.

Where the Deadeye is the one with a "bullet with your name on it," the Engineer Rifle, regardless of what spec has it is, is the "to whoever it may concern," who has to be in the face of the target.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Malus.2184

[Nash.2681]

2 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

There are several traits that increases DPS that need the character to be below 450 Units at the lowest. These traits increase your DPS by a lot, even if they had all the Boons at 1200 units away they would be objectively worse than one who was below 450 units away from the target who also had all Boons.

Where the Deadeye is the one with a Tbullet with your name on," the Engineer Rifle, regardless of what spec has it is, is the "to whoever it may concern."

Ok, there's a trait that has a trade-off "more dmg vs more safety". I don't see the issue here, on contrary, isn't that how it should work? Putting an emphasis on risk vs. reward (hint: that's the concept that gets massively contradicted by Mechanist btw.)? 

I get when people don't like the "stack and whack" gameplay. It exists for a reason and personally I don't mind it that much, but I can see why people would rather play their ranged spec actually at range. Problem is, with GW2's combat system it would either dumb down encounters even more, or make playing support specs almost impossible or simply not practicable, opening up a whole new set of issues.

 

[Noir.8561]

38 minutes ago, Nash.2681 said:

I get when people don't like the "stack and whack" gameplay. It exists for a reason and personally I don't mind it that much, but I can see why people would rather play their ranged spec actually at range. Problem is, with GW2's combat system it would either dumb down encounters even more, or make playing support specs almost impossible or simply not practicable, opening up a whole new set of issues.

Healers as a crutch could still  be used in Normal Modes , but creates a problem in CM modes when you stack them . Thankfully every spec can spec to Boon distributions or dps , so people won't be left out in CM modes .

 

We have enough dumping down mechanics , like for example Mechs + Guards can use mass Stabilize vs Magister Lee's KnockBack slash . And from now on , when we design encounters , 2/3 of it's mechanics that are used , should become unblockable - prevents stability (in CMs) , so the 66%of the failure blame goes into the players hands

Edited October 7, 2022 by Noir.8561

[otto.5684]

I do not agree for point one. Most ranged classes have to stay close to maximise damage anyway. Plus, having ranges builds deals slightly less damage is fine. But them being absolute kitten is not.

[Lynx.9058]

There's No reason for ranged to do less than melee since, as you said, they do not get group buffs or heals without stacking up with the melee players, at which point their range advantage is gone.

If ranged builds are forced to play at melee range because of how reliant everyone is on buff spam, they really aren't ranged builds anymore; they're melee builds with ranged weapons.

As far as a range threshhold, I think you're looking at this the wrong way.  Yea, mechanist/engineer has traits which force being at close range, and when you're using a ranged weapon on a ranged build that is a bad idea IMO.  Ranged builds, if they truly are meant to be played at range, should be encouraged to actually do so - not to sit in melee with everyone else.

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Lynx.9058

[the krytan assassin.9235]

There are many factors that should determine the maximum dps output a profession should do: ranged vs melee, professions that depend on stationary targets vs not, condi vs power, the amount of access to CC & group support, personal surviveability, cleave damage vs single target, hitbox size of enemy, difficulty level of damage rotation. 

 

The goal should be to find some balance between all classes and their specializatios/weapon combo's. Each class reaching roughly the same performance output and representation. 

 

For WvW:

Im pretty sure people always be stacking due to the nature of boonshare & healing range. The main problem i currently have with the boonball meta is its focus on boonstrips and stability (which also puts CC in quite a bad spot atm). I'd love to get back to the times when you could go full brawler mode RG style through the enemy zergs. 

[Malus.2184]

4 hours ago, Nash.2681 said:

I get when people don't like the "stack and whack" gameplay. It exists for a reason and personally I don't mind it that much, but I can see why people would rather play their ranged spec actually at range. Problem is, with GW2's combat system it would either dumb down encounters even more, or make playing support specs almost impossible or simply not practicable, opening up a whole new set of issues.

 

What are you talking abourt What is it? Did you only what you wanted to read into my post since I specifically mention the "stack and whack" as just a thing of the game. Within that range it's okay for ranged to deal as much damage as melee. I even address that ranged should deal the samae damage as melee at that range or else melee is going to be so muich better than ranged iof they had a universal damage reduction. The issue is that they can potentially deal that damage from ANY range if they have the boons.

3 hours ago, otto.5684 said:

I do not agree for point one. Most ranged classes have to stay close to maximise damage anyway. Plus, having ranges builds deals slightly less damage is fine. But them being absolute kitten is not.

My original post stated specifically that they should deal less damage over a given Range Treshold and full damage awhen they're close to the target. So I've no idea what you're talking about.

2 hours ago, Lynx.9058 said:

Ranged builds, if they truly are meant to be played at range, should be encouraged to actually do so - not to sit in melee with everyone else

That's just the state of the game. What your suggestion is implying would make ranged imba beyond belief.

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Malus.2184

[SlayerXX.7138]

8 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

If anything we need less stack-and-whack, not more.

I Absolutely agree. BUT, we are long past the point of no return. Boons centralize instanced content for to long. Its to late. Besides drastic measures like new encounters neutralizing boons or boss room wide boon weakening there is not much there can be done. Range is basically there to do extra dps between mechanics.

[AliamRationem.5172]

9 hours ago, Lynx.9058 said:

There's No reason for ranged to do less than melee since, as you said, they do not get group buffs or heals without stacking up with the melee players, at which point their range advantage is gone.

If ranged builds are forced to play at melee range because of how reliant everyone is on buff spam, they really aren't ranged builds anymore; they're melee builds with ranged weapons.

As far as a range threshhold, I think you're looking at this the wrong way.  Yea, mechanist/engineer has traits which force being at close range, and when you're using a ranged weapon on a ranged build that is a bad idea IMO.  Ranged builds, if they truly are meant to be played at range, should be encouraged to actually do so - not to sit in melee with everyone else.

 

GW2 forces stacking in a couple of ways.  First, no tank = no means of controlling enemy positioning.  Second, proximity-based support.  In my opinion, these were bad calls.  But what's done is done.  To break the monotony of stack-in-a-pile gameplay, they introduce mechanics like splits that force players to periodically move out of melee range.

It is during these times where range is at an advantage.  However, they are not at a disadvantage when they are at melee.  So it is pure gain for them.  This means that if you have two specs with equal DPS potential, but one is ranged and one is melee, the ranged build will perform equally on a pure melee fight and outperform the melee build the more of these mechanics are present.  This is why ranged should deal less damage than melee.

So, how do we achieve the goals of 1) Encouraging ranged builds to spend more time at range and 2) Prevent a mechanist scenario where the ranged build has only advantages and no disadvantages?  One way of handling that is to increase ranged damage from range while decreasing it the closer you are to the target. 

Is this a good idea?  I'm not sure, honestly.  It could certainly work.  However, the balancing act of managing boon uptime, getting the required healing, and maximizing long range DPS uptime for optimal damage output might be annoying.  Or maybe it'd be fun and engaging?  Who knows?

Like I said, it's just one way.  An example.  This would create an incentive for being at range as a ranged build, but one that comes with the tradeoff of not having pure advantage over melee builds.  When you're forced to play in the melee spec's yard, your DPS suffers just as theirs does when they're forced to play in the ranged yard.  Seems fair, no?

[Angesombre.4630]

I think that the quickness and the alac make the game harder to balance.

[AliamRationem.5172]

23 minutes ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

I think that the quickness and the alac make the game harder to balance.

It sure seems that way.  On the other hand, without high-impact boons like quickness and alacrity your support role disappears and you're left with just the healing role.  Where LFG currently might look for combinations that provide healing, alacrity, and quickness in 2 slots with 3 DPS comprising the rest, it instead becomes one healer and 4 DPS.  So, removing or reducing these boons might not be an improvement either.

[Kalthea.4326]

31 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

It sure seems that way.  On the other hand, without high-impact boons like quickness and alacrity your support role disappears and you're left with just the healing role.  Where LFG currently might look for combinations that provide healing, alacrity, and quickness in 2 slots with 3 DPS comprising the rest, it instead becomes one healer and 4 DPS.  So, removing or reducing these boons might not be an improvement either.

It would be a big improvement, honestly. You could then start designing classes without having to worry about those boons constantly affecting gameplay, you could increase limits on might cap or vuln cap to provide different forms of support, change more numbers around to balance out how specific weaponry works, adjust cooldowns to comfortable numbers, change around boss health to deal with the new changes, and a whole bunch of other tweaks that I can't think of off the top of my head. Those two boons alone are the limiting factor in balancing the game right now, and they've polluted the game horribly since their introduction and the now defunct class-specific buffs (that don't have to just be stat increases, might I add).

[Avatara.1042]

Your number 2 suggestion would completely kill WvW.  Trolls, spies, new players, auto-boons, etc would all still fire off.  Only supreme organised groups running with no pin would work.

[Angesombre.4630]

Then there are all the defensive roles with Aegis, Protection, Resistance and Resolution that are perhaps under-exploited in the PvP and WvW content. After that it's sure that in PvE content we don't use the buffs in the same way.

This is just my opinion, maybe wrong.

After all, the unique buffs might also give something different.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Angesombre.4630

[Verdict is Vengence.6912]

Interesting conversation 🤔.

As a warrior main, it would be nice if ranged was toned down lol. But seriously, I don't know who is right here. Boon balls are here to stay it seems. 

[smiiirf.3201]

On 10/7/2022 at 2:58 PM, Malus.2184 said:

3. Stealth in PvP and WvW. Stealth in these games modes are absolutely overpowering if used well. Again ANet has fiddled with CD and duration and it really solves nothing, it just changes the purpose of the Stealth. An example is Rune of the Trapper 6/6 bonus. The four second duration was primarely defensive in nature unless you wanted to trigger the penalty for breaking Stealth. The two second duration has made this application offensive in nature as people can attack from the Stealth shortly after applying it and then apply a new one without any penalty. In WvW ANet has tried to apply the Revealed thing, however, negating one OP effect with another just makes the first extra OP if you've no way of dealing with it as there are no counters then other than being lucky, Engineers with Goggles excepted.

From my pov the issue is once again structural. Stealth is really good and the issue is how often you can enter it. I believe that the issue would be solved by removing the Revealed effect on Stealth completely and instead apply a "Grace" period where the player after exiting Stealth would be unable to enter it again while it lasted. The duration would be dependent on what type of Stealth it was, and again the Deadeye Elite would remove the "Grace" when used. Another way this could be applied was that while the "Grace" was active a Specter would be unable to Shadow Step to a Well as well as being unable to Stealth, they would get the application of Alacrity applied to them directly instead if they had that trait.

While GW2 has many balance issues from my pov some of them are general instead of specific and applying specific adjustments in order to solve general problems will never work.

Question: Why is Stealth OP in PvP and WvW? I mean in Pvp u can't take points when you are stealthed and in WvW i never see a thief in a zerg. I only see Peoples with Zerg builds chasing some thiefs because they can't copypaste proper roaming builds and learn but that is it.

[Nash.2681]

On 10/7/2022 at 7:28 PM, Malus.2184 said:

What are you talking abourt What is it? Did you only what you wanted to read into my post since I specifically mention the "stack and whack" as just a thing of the game. Within that range it's okay for ranged to deal as much damage as melee. I even address that ranged should deal the samae damage as melee at that range or else melee is going to be so muich better than ranged iof they had a universal damage reduction. The issue is that they can potentially deal that damage from ANY range if they have the boons.

My original post stated specifically that they should deal less damage over a given Range Treshold and full damage awhen they're close to the target. So I've no idea what you're talking about.

That's just the state of the game. What your suggestion is implying would make ranged imba beyond belief.

 

Well, whatever you wrote there, in no way I read that from your earlier posts. And no where did I suggest that ranged should deal the same damage when playing range than when they play in melee. Guess we somewhat agree about that.

And btw.- "would make ranged imba beyond belief"- we already have that with PMech.

[Malus.2184]

1 hour ago, Nash.2681 said:

And no where did I suggest that ranged should deal the same damage when playing range than when they play in melee.

I know, I did! It was explicitly in my first post, hence my wondering if you actually read what I wrote instead of just skimming it.

 

On 10/7/2022 at 2:58 PM, Malus.2184 said:

Thinking on this the conclusion of how this could be solved in away that game play-wise makes both equally viable would be to give ranged a Treshold over which they deal reduced damage. Ranged would still be objectively better than melee, though the difference would be far less. This would also be a chance to make the Deadeye unique. In their Kneel they get full damage above a Treshold and reduced damage within since sniping is more difficult the closer a target is.

 

[Malus.2184]

11 hours ago, Leolas.6273 said:

Question: Why is Stealth OP in PvP and WvW? I mean in Pvp u can't take points when you are stealthed and in WvW i never see a thief in a zerg. I only see Peoples with Zerg builds chasing some thiefs because they can't copypaste proper roaming builds and learn but that is it.

While you're unable to take points while you're invisible you're also untargetable. This means that melee are unable to get off AA chains and only AoE can incidentally harm them if they're in range of it. This effect is only affects one side though and the other can target at will and get off attacks undisturbed, There's also the other effect that people can run away while under Stealth, which essentially makes them able to "reset" engagements if they find  themselves in a disadvantageous situation.