Proposed idea for despamifying alac and quickness supports rotation

[marmaladebacon.2064]

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this before, but here's an idea to reduce spam

Premise:

Spamming abilities to achieve a usable amount of preferred boons such as alacrity or quickness is overly repetitive and deprives the player of the opportunity to use certain abilities in a useful manner such as a stun break, defiance bar destruction, projectile block etc. For example with quickness herald the current rotation to upkeep quickness is to consume facets as soon as they are activated in order to maintain 100% quickness uptime. For heal FB it is to spam mantra of potence off cd and their heal skill. (in fact for the FB trait it already has an internal cooldown for quickness generation!)

For elementalists the need to continually overload as soon as it is off cooldown as tempest to upkeep alacrity can potentially lock them out overloads when they are most useful.

 

Proposal:

Reduce unnecessary spam by increasing base boon duration for the alac/quickness trait, and introducing an internal cooldown. Just as an example with draconic echo, instead of producing 2 seconds of quickness, we could have a base 8 seconds of quickness with a 12 second internal cooldown, so players would still have to spec into concentration to achieve the desired 100% uptime, but it makes spamming abilities off cooldown unnecessary for generating quickness.

 

Benefits:

Less spamming of abilities just for the desired boon

Better readability of total boon uptime and appreciable difference when investing into concentration. Reading a 0.2 or 0.5 seconds increase in quickness uptime in the trait tooltip feels terrible after investing in an additional an extra 200 concentration for example

Encourage more players into the support role, without requiring a high spam floor.

 

Disadvantages:

Internal cooldowns have always been annoying to manage since they are often not actively shown, or are shown as a tiny buff icon when available and missing when it is not.

 

[the krytan assassin.9235]

ICDs and autoattack chain attacks are imo the most horrible addition Anet has added for anyone that tries to get a proper rotation going. Adding more ICDs is a big no for me. Aslong as Anet doesn't provide a decent way to track your ICDs, im all for banishing all ICD traits/sigils to the shadowrealm. 

[Asum.4960]

I don't think it's an elegant solution, but it's imo indeed better than the emerging spam 3+ skills of y category to generate x boon. 

Personally I'd like Anet to rethink how they are utilizing the Trait system and Utility bar to create engaging gameplay experiences as a whole (over passive modifiers which don't alter gameplay at all, the Utility bar as extended weapon skills, or spamming everything off-CD for boon generation), but that's a bigger topic.

 

In my "ideal world" Quick/Alac generation happens through 2 buttons at Cooldowns between 15-25 seconds in a >360 range, requires 1 Trait as investment which directly competes with a DPS option, and requires around 40% Boon duration to somewhat comfortably maintain with a slight overstack, as guiding design principle.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Ashen.2907]

Almost anything is better than the current situation where a skill(s) primary purpose is largely ignored as it is used off cooldown to trigger a tacked on boon.

[Zaret.1450]

Its a difficult topic,  on one hand youre right, on the other inserting ICD woukd be very very troublesome overall, and if you didnt introduce them then pleople would still spam because its the most efficient way to stack certain boons on certain classes.

Maybe it would be better to give diferent sources for those classes like herald and tempest, that have issues with spamming, while firebrand for example... fb doesnt realy have a problem there, as it is just mantra uses that give that boon, maybe just making mantras uses have a 2 secs interval between uses and a sec more boon duration could work, tempest dunno, i never mained ele, and herald... i dont realy know what could fin without being broken or weak

[Cuks.8241]

1000% agree.

I would say herald and tempest definitely need redesign. For herald they could add a trait that exchanges protection and super speed from elite facet to quickness and with decent concentration and smart use of F2 you could keep up full quickness just with that. The energy cost of the passive part would also be reduced so you could use other facets for other boon uptime. Or do that to some other facet.

FB is not as bad as mantras are instant so they dont really interrupt rotations and you still have enough leeway with the up time and insane amount of utility packed in tomes. Spammy? Yes. Does it completely negate all other utility due to quickness? Not really.

Banner warrior. Well we're used to being a banner slave. Banner of tactics is wasted though because you have so much cool utility packed with it but you will use it off CD just for quickness. I've seen good suggestions to add a flip skill on banners which would let you control when to activate the on placement effects.

Harbinger quickness is actually almost completely passive. 

For the other I am not so familiar with. Qrapper I am not sure how much you need to spam gyros to get the full up time and how much utility is lost on that.

edit: I think ideally the full up time should be achieved with sacrificing some stats either through concentration or rune selection, grand master trait, 1 utility slot. Maybe 2 but the second one shouldn't be situational and also have a dps component or some passive boon component  (might, fury, regeneration, vigor). 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Cuks.8241

[SlayerXX.7138]

7 hours ago, marmaladebacon.2064 said:

Reduce unnecessary spam by increasing base boon duration for the alac/quickness trait, and introducing an internal cooldown. Just as an example with draconic echo, instead of producing 2 seconds of quickness, we could have a base 8 seconds of quickness with a 12 second internal cooldown, so players would still have to spec into concentration to achieve the desired 100% uptime, but it makes spamming abilities off cooldown unnecessary for generating quickness.

That does sound like power creep with extra steps. In Your specific use case maybe not, because Legends, but ever other profession will just replace the Utility with damage. Making boon Dps, to pure Dps that also pulse boons. Having that implemented for herald wont brake the class, but i could see that design concept getting out of hand real quick.

1 hour ago, Asum.4960 said:

In my "ideal world" Quick/Alac generation happens through 2 buttons at Cooldowns between 15-25 seconds in a >360 range, requires 1 Trait as investment which directly competes with a DPS option, and requires around 40% Boon duration to somewhat comfortably maintain with a slight overstack, as guiding design principle.

I absolutely agree, but we the player base would ruin it. The new meta would be 4 DPS, 4 DPS that do 10% less damage and 2 healer increasing Player power by a lot. And with balance as its is you would end up with dozens of DPS builds getting outperformed by boons DPS. Just quickly looking at the snowcrow benchmarks, Quickness Berserker is dangerously close to pure dps. Not by being a Op Dps, but by virtue of having cheap Quickness. In a Perfect world the Balance team and class designer should be managing it, but we don't live in a perfect world.

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Albi.7250

[Asum.4960]

14 minutes ago, Albi.7250 said:

I absolutely agree, but we the player base would ruin it. The new meta would be 4 DPS, 4 DPS that do 10% less damage and 2 healer increasing Player power by a lot. And with balance as its is you would end up with dozens of DPS builds getting outperformed by boons DPS. Just quickly looking at the snowcrow benchmarks, Quickness Berserker is dangerously close to pure dps. Not by being a Op Dps, but by virtue of having cheap Quickness. In a Perfect world the Balance team and class designer should be managing it, but we don't live in a perfect world.

 

Well, right now we have 2 Boon Support Healers, 2 Boon DPS Hybrids, and 6 DPS as meta, and the comp you describe is already possible as well. I don't see this as being different balance wise in terms of Squad DPS - just in how the boons are supplied, by means of less spammy gameplay, and more room for actual Utility choices (which would mostly just serve to close the gap between specs with already inbuilt Utility profession mechanics, and those that don't).

Edited October 11, 2022 by Asum.4960

[SlayerXX.7138]

1 minute ago, Asum.4960 said:

Well, right now we have 2 Boon Support Healers, 2 Boon DPS Hybrids, and 6 DPS as meta, and the comp you describe is already possible as well. I don't see this as being different balance wise in terms of Squad DPS - just in how the boons are supplied, by means of less spammy gameplay, and more room for actual Utility choices.

The difference in squad dps is that freeing up utilities will increase dps for offensive boon provider. These actual utility choices will just be the one who does the most damage(Defiance or normal). At least for Boon DPS. Freeing up utilities for normal supports will over tune Boon dps. I don't have any faith in the balance team to handle that.

[Asum.4960]

31 minutes ago, Albi.7250 said:

The difference in squad dps is that freeing up utilities will increase dps for offensive boon provider. These actual utility choices will just be the one who does the most damage(Defiance or normal). At least for Boon DPS. Freeing up utilities for normal supports will over tune Boon dps. I don't have any faith in the balance team to handle that.

While I do share your trepidations about the Skills and Balance Team (time will tell if recent department changes will make a difference), that kind of reasoning can be used to shut down any and all development - so it doesn't seem too productive to be preoccupied with that. 

Not that giving productive feedback and suggestions has proven to be very productive over the last decade either, but you know. 

 

I still think that's a good rough approach to designing future and reworking some existing boon hybrids, just in terms of gameplay. The actual balancing stands as question above everything after in any case. 

 

And as I said before, the Utility bar increasingly becoming extended weapon skills for DPS (or alternatively just bad, dead on arrival skills) is in my eyes nearly as problematic as the more recent trend of having to mindlessly spam Utilities off CD for boon generation. 

I think both the Trait system as well as the Utility bar as design concepts offer such amazing opportunities for players to either situationally, or based on gameplay preferences, customize their gameplay experience with sidegrades - it's such a shame these systems largely devolved into just collecting the maximum amount of passive damage modifiers and extra damage skills.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Asum.4960

[SlayerXX.7138]

20 minutes ago, Asum.4960 said:

that kind of reasoning can be used to shut down any and all development - so it doesn't seem too productive to be preoccupied with that. 

True! So let me be more specific. The extra power that extra utility's provide, in the context of Boon Dps would force the developer to fundamentally change how trait lines and/or utilities work. As non numerical changes seem to be somewhat bottlenecked for a while now, I don't think the current balance team, with the current resources could handle a change with as big as scope as this. They would need to do a lot of nothing changes on boon dps in the progress. For example Alac Specter will just slot venom for each free slot it got. So they would need to nerf damage somehow on alac specter without affecting Dps specter. Even if they succeed in it, they just tinkered with a spec for no gain to the spec.

And all that over multiple Patch cycles oh boy.

Or I could be wrong. It just seems to be a lot of work to give free choice to a Game mode as restrictive as instance PvE content.

[Asum.4960]

4 hours ago, Albi.7250 said:

True! So let me be more specific. The extra power that extra utility's provide, in the context of Boon Dps would force the developer to fundamentally change how trait lines and/or utilities work. As non numerical changes seem to be somewhat bottlenecked for a while now, I don't think the current balance team, with the current resources could handle a change with as big as scope as this. They would need to do a lot of nothing changes on boon dps in the progress. For example Alac Specter will just slot venom for each free slot it got. So they would need to nerf damage somehow on alac specter without affecting Dps specter. Even if they succeed in it, they just tinkered with a spec for no gain to the spec.

And all that over multiple Patch cycles oh boy.

Or I could be wrong. It just seems to be a lot of work to give free choice to a Game mode as restrictive as instance PvE content.

I don't really think so. 

qFB already can run it's damage Utilities. qHarbinger already runs BiP and operates on the 2 buttons for Quickness principle (albeit with poor gameplay execution), and Necro doesn't really have any other worthwhile Utilities, the Elixirs as bland Blight generators already are the biggest DPS increases. qHerald can't swap in Utilities and already uses everything. alacSpecter already uses it's most prominent DPS Venom and could use a small DPS bump (seeing as Alacrity Hybrid options are generally undertuned anyway, creating comp bottlenecks). qScrapper already uses Grenade Kit, and Shredder Gyro is both one of it's Quickness generators as well as it's DPS Utility.. and so on. 

 

So really not much would change, other than less spammy gameplay, and giving some specs the ability to either bring some extra Utility, or hold the one they already have for when it's actually needed, rather than having to spam it off-CD for the boon that got attached to it. 

 

All that said, you are not wrong - even such a relatively small thing is probably outside of their scope, as just about any meaningful and well thought out change seems to be (in reasonable timeframes at least). 

Edited October 12, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Ashgar.3024]

The builds just need multiple ways within their kits to maintain their boons when running high concentration, not really more complicated than that.

 

I think its something Anet devs are starting to realize, example is the change to Well of Bounty on Specter. It technically heavily overlaps with Thrill of the Crime if you just mindlessly mash your keys but at the same time open opportunities to hold either of these abilities to keep them for more thoughtful uses, in Siphon's case it means more opportunity to boonrip or it even gives a currently underused trait that turns it into a rez signet more useability. On the other hand if the Siphon can safely be used on CD it means it easier to delay Well of Bounty in order to use it at a time where Stab might be crucial.

 

I think more changes along these lines would do wonders to make boon supports more reactive and thoughtful and less just whack-a-mole builds.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

Once upon a time in guild wars 1, there existed a skill called Shadow Form. Shadow Form made all attacks against the caster miss, and all spells targeting the caster failed. The spell made the caster invulnerable to any and all sources of damage.
 

the raid/speed clear community built entire swaths of team builds and the infrastructure of the games economy was then built on the harvesting of ecto, coffers and ambraces of the elite dungeons, exploiting this skill and the ability to permanently maintain it.
 

the mention that Anet was going to get rid of the shadow form economy led to revolt…protest in the streets! The gamers cried Bloody Mary! They vowed to abandon the game…in droves they left! God forbid they had to do a dungeon the way they were actually designed! Oh no how terrible it was…such a fate.

I don’t remember what happened after this but my point in telling this story: They should take away alacrity so i can witness some gamer tears again. 

 

Edited October 12, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[anbujackson.9564]

14 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Once upon a time in guild wars 1, there existed a skill called Shadow Form. Shadow Form made all attacks against the caster miss, and all spells targeting the caster failed. The spell made the caster invulnerable to any and all sources of damage.
 

the raid/speed clear community built entire swaths of team builds and the infrastructure of the games economy was then built on the harvesting of ecto, coffers and ambraces of the elite dungeons, exploiting this skill and the ability to permanently maintain it.
 

the mention that Anet was going to get rid of the shadow form economy led to revolt…protest in the streets! The gamers cried Bloody Mary! They vowed to abandon the game…in droves they left! God forbid they had to do a dungeon the way they were actually designed! Oh no how terrible it was…such a fate.

I don’t remember what happened after this but my point in telling this story: They should take away alacrity so i can witness some gamer tears again. 

 

Shadowform got changed so you had fixed damage per attack (splitter armor says hi) and you were vulnerable to physical damage. You got shroud for that though (block and life regen below 50%).

Anyway back to topic: I think there was only one build that wasnt just press x,y,z OCD in the game. And that was the old chrono with the old concentration sigill. Like not swapping weapons before your applications (especially from CS) killed your boons. You actually had to play a rotation somewhat. I mean compared to stuff nowadays its like comparing a rifle mech rotation to a condi renegade or something.

ICD are a huge pain for the average player. Its not like those can keep track of them since they already struggle to use stuff simply on cooldown while keeping track of their positioning. 

Not much you can do here to be honest since ANET frontloads more and more boons to basic traits and utilities. Reverting all that would be quite the workload.

Edited October 12, 2022 by anbujackson.9564

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

1 hour ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Shadowform got changed so you had fixed damage per attack (splitter armor says hi) and you were vulnerable to physical damage. You got shroud for that though (block and life regen below 50%).

Anyway back to topic:

Ya I obviously know that it got changed, and not removed..congrats you can read the wikipedia page. But that wasn’t the point of the story.

 

the point was players got so attached to this mechanic that they refused Anet the option to change their own game. Anet caved to the crowd and still allowed the Shadow-form economy to exist because they didn’t want to lose thier dwindling player-base …

 

The point is that history likes to repeat itself.
 

How about breaking the cycle and just getting rid of the alacrity quickness economy change up the endgame huh…but obviously the tears would flow as actual money was poured into gear, all the meta builds currently focalized on the existence of these crucial boons would evaporate over night. The endgame speed runners and guild machos would heave their lunch…there would be no telling how good or bad the games diversity would change…hopefully for the better and not for the worse. But that’s me I’m all about change.

 

In the end it’s wishful thinking…a hypothetical… meant to put opinion on the matter in perspective.

[Borked.6824]

The baseline expectation is 100% uptime anyway.  It's basically baked into the group via spamming, gearing, or traits.  Your neurotic leader expects it.  Your lazy (and neurotic) groupmates expect it.  Your grandmother that knows nothing about GW2 and boons expects it.  God expects it.  

So if it's the baseline expectation, things like adding duration and making the QoL are implored here.  Doing otherwise is literally just insulting and creating agony where it doesn't need to exist.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

2 hours ago, Borked.6824 said:

The baseline expectation is 100% uptime anyway.

This is an important factor here.

Anet could create a trait which simply says 'Every 5 seconds buff 5s Alac (or Quick) in 360 degrees'  and then you just take your boon provider and sit in the middle of the squad and do nothing different.

Like what is the actual point of all the work some professions need to invest into providing a boon?  There is absolutely no payoff for being a good boon provider.  There is also not much of a punishment for being a bad boon provider.  Either you do it or you don't. 

To the OP, I am not a fan of your suggestion.

Quick and Alac should appear in this game in 2 methods only:

1 - Self buffed only.  In this case we would want to create builds that can self-buff 24/7 Quick or Alac to create unique playstyles.

2 - 5 Player Short Duration Long CD Buff.  Used to pump up your team for burn phases such as after CC is broken.

Having Quick and Alac 24/7 in PvE is such a bad choice and I hope Anet finds the stones to go back to the drawing board on this one.

and, if you think it is too late to back out of how they have implemented Quick and Alac, this is software, they can do anything they want with it, include right this mistake they have made.

Edited October 12, 2022 by Mungo Zen.9364

[marmaladebacon.2064]

19 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

This is an important factor here.

Anet could create a trait which simply says 'Every 5 seconds buff 5s Alac (or Quick) in 360 degrees'  and then you just take your boon provider and sit in the middle of the squad and do nothing different.

Like what is the actual point of all the work some professions need to invest into providing a boon?  There is absolutely no payoff for being a good boon provider.  There is also not much of a punishment for being a bad boon provider.  Either you do it or you don't. 

Hear me out here, I actually tend towards the opinion quickness and alacrity should never have been added to the game in the first place, since these buffs provide an oversized benefit to player power. You hardly have anyone creating a build centered around 100% regen for example, or 100% protection, but you get quick or alac builds.

19 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

To the OP, I am not a fan of your suggestion.

Quick and Alac should appear in this game in 2 methods only:

1 - Self buffed only.  In this case we would want to create builds that can self-buff 24/7 Quick or Alac to create unique playstyles.

2 - 5 Player Short Duration Long CD Buff.  Used to pump up your team for burn phases such as after CC is broken.

Having Quick and Alac 24/7 in PvE is such a bad choice and I hope Anet finds the stones to go back to the drawing board on this one.

and, if you think it is too late to back out of how they have implemented Quick and Alac, this is software, they can do anything they want with it, include right this mistake they have made.

If they had been judicious with how quick and alac has been (also possibly having lowered effectiveness in the first place) and applied with your 2 methods, we might not be having this discussion.  The original post is how the meta for certain quickness and alac providers are centered around spamming certain abilities and discouraging actual decision making especially if said ability also has other useful properties such as a group stun break or defiance bar breaking. This isn't interesting gameplay at all.

The problem is not just software related, this is where I would disagree with you. Reworking to have quickness and alacrity providers be as you described would include rebalancing many things to take into account the diminished quickness and alacrity provided in PvP, PvE mob health, and potentially affect other properties of the 'rebalanced' skill such as it's other effects. There's probably a lot of work that goes into testing, rebalancing and testing again that we won't ever see.

Player expectations on player power has been set, and there has to be much better communication and "preparing the ground" so that players are not just blindsided by the changes. If they want to do what you mentioned rightly and back out much of the changes. Again this requires  time and discussion to align on how players should be informed and I don't think this is a simple process, especially if this can affect player retention.

My point with this post is to provide a passable solution that can achieve a quality of life improvement without upsetting the entirety of the current balance and in a relatively easy implementation, which i could be wrong as I do not have access to their workflows or code. I may not have foreseen all ends and hence I welcome the discussion.

Maybe we will have reduced alacrity and quickness providers as part of the goals in our upcoming dev manifesto in November, but I am unsure based on the current trajectory of patch balance.

Edited October 13, 2022 by marmaladebacon.2064
Updated for clarity

[Mungo Zen.9364]

54 minutes ago, marmaladebacon.2064 said:

Hear me out here, I actually tend towards the opinion quickness and alacrity should never have been added to the game in the first place, since these buffs provide an oversized benefit to player power. You hardly have anyone creating a build centered around 100% regen for example, or 100% protection, but you get quick or alac builds.

If they had been judicious with how quick and alac has been (also possibly having lowered effectiveness in the first place) and applied with your 2 methods, we might not be having this discussion.  The original post is how the meta for certain quickness and alac providers are centered around spamming certain abilities and discouraging actual decision making especially if said ability also has other useful properties such as a group stun break or defiance bar breaking. This isn't interesting gameplay at all.

The problem is not just software related, this is where I would disagree with you. Reworking to have quickness and alacrity providers be as you described would include rebalancing many things to take into account the diminished quickness and alacrity provided in PvP, PvE mob health, and potentially affect other properties of the 'rebalanced' skill such as it's other effects. There's probably a lot of work that goes into testing, rebalancing and testing again that we won't ever see.

Player expectations on player power has been set, and there has to be much better communication and "preparing the ground" so that players are not just blindsided by the changes. If they want to do what you mentioned rightly and back out much of the changes. Again this requires  time and discussion to align on how players should be informed and I don't think this is a simple process, especially if this can affect player retention.

My point with this post is to provide a passable solution that can achieve a quality of life improvement without upsetting the entirety of the current balance and in a relatively easy implementation, which i could be wrong as I do not have access to their workflows or code. I may not have foreseen all ends and hence I welcome the discussion.

Maybe we will have reduced alacrity and quickness providers as part of the goals in our upcoming dev manifesto in November, but I am unsure based on the current trajectory of patch balance.

The premise 'player expectations of power have been set' has rarely been the guiding light for changes in this game.  Consider how they added Alacrity and Quickness to all PvE encounters with EoD via expanded boon sharing builds across more professions, and even added Jade Bot Offensive and Defensive stations so anyone at any time in Open World can now have Alacrity and Quickness (alongside every other buff in the game) without any other players present or their own build including it.

Then they removed the unique Banner and Spirit boons, which was a net nerf to party DPS.

Both of these changes affected the power levels in the game yet we didn't see major sweeping rebalancing of Core, HoT or PoF when these changes went live.  These two things do not balance each other out either, they were just 'changes' to move towards a new design philosophy.

As Alacrity and Quickness are ultimately a DPS modifier that can be broken down to a percentage gain, taking away these two boons from the game would, at worst, require all professions see some form of percent DPS increase.  Again, the developers have heavily modified the power levels in this game over the past 5-8 years and have rarely rebalanced old content around these changes.

I would agree that PvP and WvW balancing might require some investment if they removed these boons from party buffs, yet I wonder how much they reworked PvP and WvW builds after making the Quick and Alac changes this year?

I tend to see the path to changing boons in this game as relatively easy, especially given the history of how Anet makes changes in this game.  I currently do not care for thew way Alacrity and Quickness are utilized in this game and will continue to push for some type of changes that remove it from being a blanket 24/7 boon.

[Warscythes.9307]

9 minutes ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

 

As Alacrity and Quickness are ultimately a DPS modifier that can be broken down to a percentage gain, taking away these two boons from the game would, at worst, require all professions see some form of percent DPS increase. 

I am going to discuss just on this statement.

 

This is incorrect. Some builds depend heavily on quickness and alacrity to make their rotation work. It is not just a number increase like banners or unique boons are, your entire gameplay changes because your cd now does not line up. There has to be way more work involve in this. Ele is a prime example of this. Quickness also directly impact your character's feel, your rotation always feels nicer with quickness vs without quickness as it start to feel sluggish. Is like moving out of combat and suddenly you are in combat, you feel like you are crawling. Neither of these are pure number buffs but much more deeply intertwined than you think.

Edited October 13, 2022 by Warscythes.9307

[Mungo Zen.9364]

14 minutes ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

I am going to discuss just on this statement.

 

This is incorrect. Some builds depend heavily on quickness and alacrity to make their rotation work. It is not just a number increase like banners or unique boons are, your entire gameplay changes because your cd now does not line up. There has to be way more work involve in this. Ele is a prime example of this. Quickness also directly impact your character's feel, your rotation always feels nicer with quickness vs without quickness as it start to feel sluggish. Is like moving out of combat and suddenly you are in combat, you feel like you are crawling. Neither of these are pure number buffs but much more deeply intertwined than you think.

The context is potentially being lost over several posts.

21 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

Quick and Alac should appear in this game in 2 methods only:

1 - Self buffed only.  In this case we would want to create builds that can self-buff 24/7 Quick or Alac to create unique playstyles.

2 - 5 Player Short Duration Long CD Buff.  Used to pump up your team for burn phases such as after CC is broken.

I am aware that Alac and Quick focused builds exist but, as of today, they are focused on also providing Alac or Quick to other people.  Are there any selfish Alac or Quick builds that only spam the player with these buffs?  I really am not aware of any as the majority of those skills and traits were gutted to make way for the new design.

I would double down that, by having 24/7 Alac and Quick in this game it makes everyone play faster, and that is not a good thing.  It removes the uniqueness of using these boons.  Like, in Open World, knowing I can get 30 seconds of Alac and Quick whenever I enter combat on any build using Jade Bot Offensive and Defensive stations.

For the majority of players, who are playing professions or builds that do not buff Alac or Quick, they are all playing the game faster today than before.  For those players, those builds, I would suggest that the 'bonus' Alac and Quick could be replaced with some other DPS increase, if it was in fact needed.

This would then free up Anet to create builds that do self buff Quick and Alac to create unique and different play patterns. the thing you are commenting on here.  I would far prefer to see Anet have a handful selfish Alac and Quick builds than the current method.

[Warscythes.9307]

29 minutes ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

The context is potentially being lost over several posts.

I am aware that Alac and Quick focused builds exist but, as of today, they are focused on also providing Alac or Quick to other people.  Are there any selfish Alac or Quick builds that only spam the player with these buffs?  I really am not aware of any as the majority of those skills and traits were gutted to make way for the new design.

I would double down that, by having 24/7 Alac and Quick in this game it makes everyone play faster, and that is not a good thing.  It removes the uniqueness of using these boons.  Like, in Open World, knowing I can get 30 seconds of Alac and Quick whenever I enter combat on any build using Jade Bot Offensive and Defensive stations.

For the majority of players, who are playing professions or builds that do not buff Alac or Quick, they are all playing the game faster today than before.  For those players, those builds, I would suggest that the 'bonus' Alac and Quick could be replaced with some other DPS increase, if it was in fact needed.

This would then free up Anet to create builds that do self buff Quick and Alac to create unique and different play patterns. the thing you are commenting on here.  I would far prefer to see Anet have a handful selfish Alac and Quick builds than the current method.

I feel we are now getting back to the age old issue of how realistic it is. Because the premise of what previously suggested is that because alacrity and quickness are just damage buffs which I believe it is not in the previous post. The rebalance was suggested that it can be done relatively easier by nudging some numbers. I think the issue here is that you cannot just do that, you have to now consider cd of the classes, the cast time of skills in addition to damage as well as to preserve the gameplay of the current builds. I feel having unique and different builds does not mean the builds are necessarily better or fun more to play. With every single build is played with quickness and alacrity in mind, I don't think the suggested change will make the gameplay better, it will just make it different as now only a handful will be able to maintain it. I feel the players are going to feel they lost something instead of gaining something instead and that it is getting to the problem that are we trying to make things different for the sake of being different?

Edited October 13, 2022 by Warscythes.9307

[Mungo Zen.9364]

1 hour ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

I think the issue here is that you cannot just do that, you have to now consider cd of the classes, the cast time of skills in addition to damage as well as to preserve the gameplay of the current builds

The same consideration they gave the professions when they decided to gut personal Quick and Alac and replace it with only party buffs?  Chrono still wants a word with someone about this....

In most settings players now have access to 24/7 Quick and Alac, even if their build does not provide it natively.  As such, everyone is playing faster in most situations than before.   You don't need Alacrity to do this.  You could reduce all the CD's in the game by an arbitrary percentage to net the same result.  Same for Quickness, just reduce the cast times of skills by an arbitrary percentage.

When all players can expect 100% uptime of a specific boon, even Fury, Might, then what is it actually doing for the game?

1 hour ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

I feel the players are going to feel they lost something instead of gaining something instead and that it is getting to the problem that are we trying to make things different for the sake of being different?

This isn't about making something different for the sake of being different.  It's identifying that the way Anet has handled boons has removed some unique builds and devalued Alacrity and Quickness as a result.  I feel like we already lost something over the past year, over Anet trying to make something uniform (Alac and Quick sources) for the sake of being uniform.

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Mungo Zen.9364

[Warscythes.9307]

2 minutes ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

The same consideration they gave the professions when they decided to gut personal Quick and Alac and replace it with only party buffs?  Chrono still wants a word with someone about this....  What considerations do you think they had about profession builds and balance when they made these changes?

In most settings players now have access to 24/7 Quick and Alac, even if their build does not provide it natively.  As such, everyone is playing faster in most situations than before.   You don't need Alacrity to do this.  You could reduce all the CD's in the game by an arbitrary percentage to net the same result.  Same for Quickness, just reduce the cast times of skills by an arbitrary percentage.

When all players can expect 100% uptime of a specific boon, even Fury, Might, then what is it actually doing for the game?

This isn't about making something different for the sake of being different.  It's identifying that the way Anet has handled boons has removed some unique builds and devalued Alacrity and Quickness as a result.  I feel like we already lost something over the past year, over Anet trying to make something uniform (Alac and Quick sources) for the sake of being uniform.

 

I don't recall they gut personal quick and ala and replace it with only party buffs. They gutted unique buffs for party buffs such as AP, Druid spirit etc, unless you are talking about something else. 

 

I think the consideration they had was essentially get rid of the unique buffs and make sure alacrity and quickness can be fulfilled easier by the groups. They had 2 ways to go about this when the change is made. Either they make alacrity and quickness practically permanent that any class, not spec can do so is easier to apply. Or they go the other way and make alacrity and quickness certain builds only. They picked the first one because it is easier to maintain the current balance. It just adds more options instead. 

 

Now about 24/7 quick/alacrity, if  you just reduce everyone's cast time and cd, then that is giving everyone quickness and alacrity correct? I feel there is nuance to this and this might be a bit of a hot take, but I believe boon giving should be a player skill just as doing dps is a player skill. If you can do your boon rotation and good positioning, then your group should have 100% boon uptime, if you do not, your group's boons should be bad. The same with dps that if your rotation and mechanic is good, you do good dps, if not you are dead. By making it always 100% takes away that aspect and I am not saying the current situation is not good either, because you have HAM maintain alacrity by autoattacking and HAT that need to overload. I feel this can be tuned to a better compromise instead of 100% boon be literal braindead or impossible in some situations.

 

Basically it should be a skill to provide good boons, just like dps should be good to do dps. I don't think Anet make alac and quickness easy to access as sake of being uniform, I think it is simply because people like these buffs and changing it will require a complete rebalance of the entire PvE game at least and the result might not even be better as being different doesn't mean is better, is just different. But I can at least assure you that people who lost quickness and alacrity in their build WILL be unhappy about it. At least I know I will. Playing without them is like running without swiftness, it feels bad.