On Balance Philosophy: Power Budget

[oscuro.9720]

@Cal Cohen.2358

I've never tagged an Anet employee directly, but today I'm feeling kind of risky. I enjoyed the live stream. I think the format is great for more clearly communicating the intent and meaning behind the balance decisions you are making. As someone who thinks balance decisions are the most important to maintaining a healthy game, I greatly appreciate the communication. A lot was covered in the stream, and I found the direction and overall philosophy promising.

 

I want to talk about one thing specifically; Power Budget. Much of what I say may be considerations you have already made. As you said, you have a lot of data in game that you use to base decisions on. However, part of this is to engage discussion on the topic as well. 

 

Power Budget is similar to something I have brought up in the past in my analysis of weapon skills using coefficient/cast time as the basis for analysis. In most of those threads, I specifically noted that the value of non-damage factors is not included and would only be mentioned or included qualitatively rather than quantitatively. The Power Budget seems, form what I heard, to be a way to assign quantitative values to the qualitative aspects of skills (the tickets metaphor was a very nice way of explaining this).

 

For those who did not read the notes or watch the stream, it is essentially assigning a numerical value to each aspect of a skill so that the total effectiveness of skills can be balanced. Using Roy's metaphor; You have 100 tickets to buy a prize with. Each thing you buy costs a certain amount of tickets, meaning you are constrained in which prizes you are able to buy. So, for example, if you want a 2.4 damage multiplier, that may cost 90 tickets, meaning you have 10 tickets left, far from enough to purchase an evade frame for 50 tickets. 

 

I had actually been working on a more intensive post to explain this very concept (albeit in a less easy to understand way). As such, there are two important things with Power Budget I wanted to touch on;

1. Important variables to consider

2. Assigning Power Budget values

 

Note: This is all said with WvW roaming/PvP in mind. 

 

Important Variables to consider:

In this section, I will touch on some variables that I believe should not be forgotten when evaluating the Power Budget, as well as provide an example from the formula I had half created (ngl, this is half an excuse for me to post about what I had already been working on because I didn't want to just entirely scrap it, lol). 

 

Cooldown:

This was touched on in the stream, so I will just briefly mention it. The Power Budget can be expanded by longer cooldowns, since this is a cost to use the skill, thereby increasing the benefit. 

 

Cast Time:

Cast time is a large consideration to make that I feel should not be overlooked. The duration over which a skill is cast is a cost to using the skill, and one that should not be taken lightly in PvP/WvW. Locking animations is extremely costly in competitive environments, and the cost associated with this (or rather, the increase in Power Budget) should accurately reflect the risk associated with a high cast time skill. Similarly, longer channels should result in higher total outputs (for channel skills I prefer to use coefficient/cast time rather than raw cast time or coefficient since the damage is distributed across the skill). 

 

Mobility Lock:

Mobility locking on skills is another key cost to using a skill. That cost should be accompanied by a similar benefit. This is something I feel is not always reflected in game. For example, with  100blades; the long cast time and low coefficient/cast is further burdened by the mobility lock on the skill. In addition to added damage or a lower cast time (if you wish to see the justification for this, I have numerous numerical breakdowns in my past posts 🙂 ), which would bring the skill on par with other 2-slot channel skills, expanding the range to, say, 240, to compensate for the mobility lock would be a way to compensate for the cost of the mobility lock. 

 

Range: 

The range of a skill should be considered a benefit (i.e. should cost some amount of tickets.). Added range gives direct advantages in competitive modes. This ones pretty basic. 

 

Teleports vs. Mobility Skills:

When evaluating a mobility skill, I believe it would be important to look at the range and speed at which the mobility skill moves. Teleports obviously being the fastest movement and having the largest conveyed benefit. However, for leaps and dashes, the distance and speed at which that distance is covered both are relevant sub-factors to consider imo. A slow mobility skill with short range plus a pre and after cast may move barely faster than a character with swiftness (swiftness is ~280 units/second. Eviscerate covers 300 units with a 3/4s cast, mobility stop on initial cast, and an after-cast). This results in an obvious animation lock that has little benefit from its actual mobility portion. I don't know how this would be accounted for, but I do think the speed and range of the mobility on a skill are important to consider. 

 

Resource Costs:

Some skills cost a resource (burst skills and adrenaline, revenant and energy, etc.). That resource consumed should expand the budget a skill has. I don't know how much, but I believe taking into account the consumption of a non-standard resource is important, as it adds 2 barriers to use instead of the typical 1 (cooldown and resource instead of just cooldown). 

 

Exponential Weighting:

I believe exponential weighting is useful for quite a few aspects of skills. The longer an effect goes on, the more impactful/game changing it becomes. For boons, this would be the duration. For conditions, the stacks should likely be weighted exponentially. So on and so forth. For example;

 

Conditions: (Condition duration*condition stacks^2) * Condition specific constant 

 - condition specific constant would be a value assigned to the unique condition type. Bleed would have the lowest constant as it has the lowest impact, burning the highest. For example, calculate this constant as damage relative to the base damage of bleed, burning would be a constant of 3.8366. 

 

Boons: (Duration^2)*(stacks)*(boon specific constant)

 

Block: (Duration^2)*Constant

 

These are just basic formulas, not actually refined to be applied in game, but they convey the basic thought process I think of when looking at a skill's values. I would imagine most skill balancing is done in a holistic manner, one to which formulas would be ill suited, but I feel portraying them as equations is a good way to represent them. 

 

Topic 2: Holistic View of a Power Budget

In the stream, it was mentioned that the Power Budget needs to be looked at not just within the skill, but within the weapon itself, which I fully agree with. However, I believe its important to note that the Power Budget available to a class should also take into account the class' profession mechanic. 

 

Given the profession mechanic is omni-present for each class, factoring in the benefits of a given mechanic are important to achieving proper balance imo. Mechanics that offer more cover to the down-time in a weapon set should reduce the overall budget available to the class, and mechanics that offer less in the way of supplementing shortcomings in weapon sets should provide a slightly larger Power Budget. 

 

These are not massive differences, as the mechanics, themselves, will hopefully fall under the same balance principle, having balanced budgets across professions, but they should still play a role in determining the budget afforded to a class' weapon kits imo. 

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this wall of text whomever made it this far. Please, let me know your thoughts on the specific thing's I brought up, or important things you think should be included, or how dumb I am. 

 

P.S.: Lan, I wrote this on a COMPUTER (way easier than mobile)! So it should be edge-lord friendly. 

 

 

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@oscuro.9720, BWAHAHAHA!

You've saved my eyes. The hero I needed.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

They really need to publish what this "Power Budget" looks like so that we can give feedback.

Things beyond melee range should have a r^2 scaling on their power budget times some scaling constant that caps at a certain point (otherwise nothing beyond 900 range would do anything...)

[eXruina.4956]

i'd say warrior's way under budget. 🤣

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

4 minutes ago, eXruina.4956 said:

i'd say warrior's way under budget. 🤣

And over taxed.

[coro.3176]

1 hour ago, oscuro.9720 said:

Conditions: (Condition duration*condition stacks^2) * Condition specific constant 

 - condition specific constant would be a value assigned to the unique condition type. Bleed would have the lowest constant as it has the lowest impact, burning the highest. For example, calculate this constant as damage relative to the base damage of bleed, burning would be a constant of 3.8366. 

I don't think this makes sense for conditions in WvW. There's so much cleanse. So much. Most conditions are cleansed within a few seconds. Thus, it wouldn't be fair to punish eg. a burn for being 15s duration, when that burn is never going to see the back half of its ticks anyway. It could be a two hour stack of burn, for all it matters. It's still getting cleansed within ~5s in a roaming fight, and within 1 second in a zerg fight.

Edited October 29, 2022 by coro.3176

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

5 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

I don't think this makes sense for conditions in WvW. There's so much cleanse. So much. Most conditions are cleansed within a few seconds. Thus, it wouldn't be fair to punish eg. a burn for being 15s duration, when that burn is never going to see the back half of its ticks anyway. It could be a two hour stack of burn, for all it matters. It's still getting cleansed within ~5s in a roaming fight, and within 1 second in a zerg fight.

That is were the constant comes in. That allows for scaling it as needed for the game mode.

[thaniretouni.4762]

Warrior. OH yeah wears heavy armour, let's add some power budget to all his skills. He also belongs to the high hp classes. Another 50 budget. Ok, has some nice weapon swap cd with discipline. Ok, leave him 10 budget. So, each skill has no to be easy to see and evade in order to gain some budget. Alright, now we got 50 budget overall, what can we do chief? Simple, make each skill to either give 2s stability or 1s resistance, do 4-5k dmg regardless of cd or adrenaline, or make it do some cc and no dmg at all. The rest of the classes can have budget discounts. Now they are even.

[oscuro.9720]

19 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

I don't think this makes sense for conditions in WvW. There's so much cleanse. So much. Most conditions are cleansed within a few seconds. Thus, it wouldn't be fair to punish eg. a burn for being 15s duration, when that burn is never going to see the back half of its ticks anyway. It could be a two hour stack of burn, for all it matters. It's still getting cleansed within ~5s in a roaming fight, and within 1 second in a zerg fight.

I would disagree with you, but it’s great to see a different opinion. 

The formula above is, firstly, just a way to represent what I’m thinking. Most importantly I think you’ve misunderstood. The formula puts the exponential scaling on the stacks, not the duration. In this way it values stacks as more “expensive” (using the budget style terminology) than duration. 
So for burning, 5 stacks of burning a 3 seconds would be 75, where as 3 stacks at 5 seconds would only be 45. The stacks are what are being punished most. 
“Punished” is also the wrong terminology. Using the Budget style metaphor, everything needs some sort of cost. You aren’t “punishing” anything, just valuing it more or less. We already do this, I was just writing it in the way I think of it, which gives it a more concrete value. However, in the above example, I wrote it in a way to display that Stacks (the squared term) and Condition Type (the constant) are the factors that should be primarily considered for conditions, with duration being pretty much a 1:1 scale. 
Again, these formulas aren’t exactly usable on a global level, but work well (at least in my head) for comparing direct components. However, when considering balance, the weight of importance of each variable is completely subjective, which means this could be altered however.

[oscuro.9720]

57 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

They really need to publish what this "Power Budget" looks like so that we can give feedback.

Things beyond melee range should have a r^2 scaling on their power budget times some scaling constant that caps at a certain point (otherwise nothing beyond 900 range would do anything...)

Yes, though I imagine they would do this subjectively/holistically rather than formulaically. There’s so many levels of abstraction that, for a constantly evolving thing like a game, a manual approach may work better. 
However, formulaically valuing some factors, like damage, healing, cleanse can work to a degree (for example, coefficient/cast time for damage-first skills is a pretty good way of evaluating things imo). Things like evade frames, mobility, blocks, CC I think work better to do on a case by case basis. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

49 minutes ago, oscuro.9720 said:

Yes, though I imagine they would do this subjectively/holistically rather than formulaically. There’s so many levels of abstraction that, for a constantly evolving thing like a game, a manual approach may work better. 
However, formulaically valuing some factors, like damage, healing, cleanse can work to a degree (for example, coefficient/cast time for damage-first skills is a pretty good way of evaluating things imo). Things like evade frames, mobility, blocks, CC I think work better to do on a case by case basis. 

No, I don't want them to 'feel' it out, I want something measurable and quantitative. That makes dissecting some skills and how to request changes to them and provide adequate feedback much easier.

[oscuro.9720]

43 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

No, I don't want them to 'feel' it out, I want something measurable and quantitative. That makes dissecting some skills and how to request changes to them and provide adequate feedback much easier.

That’s fair. However, it’s important to remember that how weapons function on a class should also function in relation to the class mechanic. So using a formula to quantitatively value all aspects of a skill seems like a less-than-ideal route imo. I do value subjective judgements to a certain degree, since a lot of these are just subjective weights created to value semi-qualitative values. 

Though, there could be another way to do this, which is to create internal skill-type designations. E.g. damage skill, condition skill, utility skill, defensive skill

Then you can write a primary formula for each to balance the primary function, then subjectively balance the secondary attributes. This leaves room to add or subtract secondary focuses to balance against profession mechanics and other class-specific attributes. 
I mean, I say all that, but I got carried away and have already written a comprehensive cost-benefit formula using basic exponential terms and run it on every greatsword skill (excluding auto attacks)… I was a bit bored today. If you want it, I can put it in here or make a post ig.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

24 minutes ago, oscuro.9720 said:

That’s fair. However, it’s important to remember that how weapons function on a class should also function in relation to the class mechanic. So using a formula to quantitatively value all aspects of a skill seems like a less-than-ideal route imo. I do value subjective judgements to a certain degree, since a lot of these are just subjective weights created to value semi-qualitative values. 

Though, there could be another way to do this, which is to create internal skill-type designations. E.g. damage skill, condition skill, utility skill, defensive skill

Then you can write a primary formula for each to balance the primary function, then subjectively balance the secondary attributes. This leaves room to add or subtract secondary focuses to balance against profession mechanics and other class-specific attributes. 
I mean, I say all that, but I got carried away and have already written a comprehensive cost-benefit formula using basic exponential terms and run it on every greatsword skill (excluding auto attacks)… I was a bit bored today. If you want it, I can put it in here or make a post ig.

I know. I asked CMC that specifically in the philosophy thread (no reply yet btw).

They said that they'll be looking at weapons on the whole, so one skill can be underpowered so that another can be overpowered, excuse me, under and over budget.

That is all well and good for the other professions, but for warrior, the equipped weapon (not you BSW) dictates the profession mechanic available.

So, is it that the profession mechanics are viewed irrespective of the equipped weapon and have a separate budget, or are they tied into the overall power budget of the weapons?

If a profession's mechanic is say, 200 power budget, well then how does that play into Shatters or Shroud skills? Pets? Tool belt skills? Bursts? Dragon Trigger?!

from their language it seems that to fairly apply their methodology that warrior burst skills will have to be stacked without traits from the get go in order to be on the same relative power budget as things like Shroud or the shatters. Which I'm fine with at this point, but I really want to know how deep and how fair in this methodology are they going to go and will they stick with it. As I said in another thread, I'm tired of warrior having to play by a separate set of rules. I want the rules laid out so I know that I am getting a fair shake with the class that I love.
 

[Infusion.7149]

As far as philisophy goes, going by numbers isn't necessary if they have "purity of purpose" in mind. They could start by looking at skills nearly nobody uses in any game mode , especially if they don't do damage.
For warrior that is probably Imminent Threat (Taunt), "Fear Me" (Fear) for example. "On My Mark" (Vuln/reveal) isn't amazing but sees some use on shout warriors. It's kind of odd to me the CC classes (Untamed to an extent if you are not good at the Fervent Force CC spam, but also spellbreaker) do less CC than say Sanctuary on guardian (750+ CC) or darkrazor on renegade (600 CC).

The flip side of this is skills that EVERY build uses on that particular spec no matter if the build is DPS or support. Think of Purging Flames on guardian , Shift Signet on mechanist, etc.

---
As far as weapons total power if they are balancing for competitive modes it is apparent the bulk of the damage on Greatsword is going to be the burst and Hundred Blades (which could use movement) ; mace needs help due to "no damage on CC" , axe doesn't need much help at all, sword doesn't need much help probably either. Condi berserker likely isn't going to be a major archetype due to cover conditions and melee gameplay (longbow has slow projectiles but does see use in WVW).
 

Edited October 29, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

6 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

As far as philisophy goes, going by numbers isn't necessary if they have "purity of purpose" in mind. They could start by looking at skills nearly nobody uses in any game mode , especially if they don't do damage.
For warrior that is probably Imminent Threat (Taunt), "Fear Me" (Fear) for example. "On My Mark" (Vuln/reveal) isn't amazing but sees some use on shout warriors. It's kind of odd to me the CC classes (Untamed to an extent if you are not good at the Fervent Force CC spam, but also spellbreaker) do less CC than say Sanctuary on guardian (750+ CC) or darkrazor on renegade (600 CC).

The flip side of this is skills that EVERY build uses on that particular spec no matter if the build is DPS or support. Think of Purging Flames on guardian , Shift Signet on mechanist, etc.

---
As far as weapons total power if they are balancing for competitive modes it is apparent the bulk of the damage on Greatsword is going to be the burst and Hundred Blades (which could use movement) ; mace needs help due to "no damage on CC" , axe doesn't need much help at all, sword doesn't need much help probably either. Condi berserker likely isn't going to be a major archetype due to cover conditions and melee gameplay (longbow has slow projectiles but does see use in WVW).
 

Sword needs help in competitive, and OH sword needs help everywhere.

My point remains though, knowing what the methodology behind these power budgets is specifically can help the rest of us give concrete feedback and suggestions that are based on something tangible. Any QQ thread asking for a nerf would be immediately asked why said skill/trait violates the power budget, and where the power should be shifted instead.

Balance wise it is a great approach, and allows room for tinkering, but it also gives a means of seeing where certain traits are over stacked and where they are underpowered on the whole.

[Infusion.7149]

Just now, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Sword needs help in competitive, and OH sword needs help everywhere.

My point remains though, knowing what the methodology behind these power budgets is specifically can help the rest of us give concrete feedback and suggestions that are based on something tangible. Any QQ thread asking for a nerf would be immediately asked why said skill/trait violates the power budget, and where the power should be shifted instead.

Balance wise it is a great approach, and allows room for tinkering, but it also gives a means of seeing where certain traits are over stacked and where they are underpowered on the whole.

(mainhand) Sword sees plenty of play in largescale WVW though when using offhand warhorn else it's typical hammer , GS or axes. In PVP people normally run dagger due to low target caps being less relevant as well as offhand shield use but that has likely been eclipsed by hammer after hammer buffs.

See https://gw2mists.com/builds/warrior/boon-spellbreaker

https://gw2mists.com/builds/warrior/shoutbreaker
https://gw2mists.com/builds/warrior/power-spellbreaker
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Spellbreaker_-_Support_Spellbreaker

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

(mainhand) Sword sees plenty of play in largescale WVW though when using offhand warhorn else it's typical hammer , GS or axes. In PVP people normally run dagger due to low target caps being less relevant as well as offhand shield use but that has likely been eclipsed by hammer after hammer buffs.

See https://gw2mists.com/builds/warrior/boon-spellbreaker

https://gw2mists.com/builds/warrior/shoutbreaker
https://gw2mists.com/builds/warrior/power-spellbreaker
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Spellbreaker_-_Support_Spellbreaker

The only reason MH sword is used on any of those builds is the mobility on Savage Leap and the immob on F1, not because of it being powerful in and of itself. People stow cancel the F1 since the immob is front loaded. F1 is too weak for the channel, Final Thrust is too weak above 50% HP. OH sword is forgotten entirely.

[Infusion.7149]

2 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

The only reason MH sword is used on any of those builds is the mobility on Savage Leap and the immob on F1, not because of it being powerful in and of itself. People stow cancel the F1 since the immob is front loaded. F1 is too weak for the channel, Final Thrust is too weak above 50% HP. OH sword is forgotten entirely.

All I'm saying is the priority should be things that either see use on every build or never see any use.

[oscuro.9720]

28 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

If a profession's mechanic is say, 200 power budget, well then how does that play into Shatters or Shroud skills? Pets? Tool belt skills? Bursts? Dragon Trigger?!

from their language it seems that to fairly apply their methodology that warrior burst skills will have to be stacked without traits from the get go in order to be on the same relative power budget as things like Shroud or the shatters. Which I'm fine with at this point, but I really want to know how deep and how fair in this methodology are they going to go and will they stick with it. As I said in another thread, I'm tired of warrior having to play by a separate set of rules. I want the rules laid out so I know that I am getting a fair shake with the class that I love.
 

Or, because warrior’s profession mechanic is tied to weapons, it means they can load more into weapon main hands since the two are inextricably tied together.

So if, for example, necro shroud is worth 300 points, you could say burst skills are worth 150, allowing 150 more points to be distributed across the weapon skills to compensate this gap, which I think would be a reasonable way to handle Warrior. 
Also super-loading bursts is another option, but I think a balance of the two would be best. Increase both weapon skills and burst skills.

In regards to Dragon Trigger, the loss of the profession mechanic flexibility provided by burst skills means that DT should be overloaded a bit more because it runs a global cooldown (meaning no cooldown swapping to use 2 bursts), plus you lose weapon swap, which should basically give an increase to the power budget equal to the total amount of 1 weapon set.  
I don’t really remember what I originally had in mind when I started writing this because the World Series is distracting me as I write this, so I’m going to watch that and hope this made sense. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

3 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

All I'm saying is the priority should be things that either see use on every build or never see any use.

Something being used can also be because there is nothing else viable for the pairing and not because it is of any real use.

This is one reason why I and others are soo peeved that BSW got OH pistol only.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 minute ago, oscuro.9720 said:

Or, because warrior’s profession mechanic is tied to weapons, it means they can load more into weapon main hands since the two are inextricably tied together.

So if, for example, necro shroud is worth 300 points, you could say burst skills are worth 150, allowing 150 more points to be distributed across the weapon skills to compensate this gap, which I think would be a reasonable way to handle Warrior. 
Also super-loading bursts is another option, but I think a balance of the two would be best. Increase both weapon skills and burst skills.

In regards to Dragon Trigger, the loss of the profession mechanic flexibility provided by burst skills means that DT should be overloaded a bit more because it runs a global cooldown (meaning no cooldown swapping to use 2 bursts), plus you lose weapon swap, which should basically give an increase to the power budget equal to the total amount of 1 weapon set.  
I don’t really remember what I originally had in mind when I started writing this because the World Series is distracting me as I write this, so I’m going to watch that and hope this made sense. 

Yes, but we can't really pontificate over this until we know right?

I blame my STEM background honestly. They dangled a quantitative metric in front of me and know I want to play with it.

THERE COULD BE SPREADSHEETS DAMNIT!!! ><

[Jzaku.9765]

5 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

@Cal Cohen.2358

I've never tagged an Anet employee directly, but today I'm feeling kind of risky. I enjoyed the live stream. I think the format is great for more clearly communicating the intent and meaning behind the balance decisions you are making. As someone who thinks balance decisions are the most important to maintaining a healthy game, I greatly appreciate the communication. A lot was covered in the stream, and I found the direction and overall philosophy promising.

 

I want to talk about one thing specifically; Power Budget. Much of what I say may be considerations you have already made. As you said, you have a lot of data in game that you use to base decisions on. However, part of this is to engage discussion on the topic as well. 

 

Power Budget is similar to something I have brought up in the past in my analysis of weapon skills using coefficient/cast time as the basis for analysis. In most of those threads, I specifically noted that the value of non-damage factors is not included and would only be mentioned or included qualitatively rather than quantitatively. The Power Budget seems, form what I heard, to be a way to assign quantitative values to the qualitative aspects of skills (the tickets metaphor was a very nice way of explaining this).

 

For those who did not read the notes or watch the stream, it is essentially assigning a numerical value to each aspect of a skill so that the total effectiveness of skills can be balanced. Using Roy's metaphor; You have 100 tickets to buy a prize with. Each thing you buy costs a certain amount of tickets, meaning you are constrained in which prizes you are able to buy. So, for example, if you want a 2.4 damage multiplier, that may cost 90 tickets, meaning you have 10 tickets left, far from enough to purchase an evade frame for 50 tickets. 

 

I had actually been working on a more intensive post to explain this very concept (albeit in a less easy to understand way). As such, there are two important things with Power Budget I wanted to touch on;

1. Important variables to consider

2. Assigning Power Budget values

 

Note: This is all said with WvW roaming/PvP in mind. 

 

Important Variables to consider:

In this section, I will touch on some variables that I believe should not be forgotten when evaluating the Power Budget, as well as provide an example from the formula I had half created (ngl, this is half an excuse for me to post about what I had already been working on because I didn't want to just entirely scrap it, lol). 

 

Cooldown:

This was touched on in the stream, so I will just briefly mention it. The Power Budget can be expanded by longer cooldowns, since this is a cost to use the skill, thereby increasing the benefit. 

 

Cast Time:

Cast time is a large consideration to make that I feel should not be overlooked. The duration over which a skill is cast is a cost to using the skill, and one that should not be taken lightly in PvP/WvW. Locking animations is extremely costly in competitive environments, and the cost associated with this (or rather, the increase in Power Budget) should accurately reflect the risk associated with a high cast time skill. Similarly, longer channels should result in higher total outputs (for channel skills I prefer to use coefficient/cast time rather than raw cast time or coefficient since the damage is distributed across the skill). 

 

Mobility Lock:

Mobility locking on skills is another key cost to using a skill. That cost should be accompanied by a similar benefit. This is something I feel is not always reflected in game. For example, with  100blades; the long cast time and low coefficient/cast is further burdened by the mobility lock on the skill. In addition to added damage or a lower cast time (if you wish to see the justification for this, I have numerous numerical breakdowns in my past posts 🙂 ), which would bring the skill on par with other 2-slot channel skills, expanding the range to, say, 240, to compensate for the mobility lock would be a way to compensate for the cost of the mobility lock. 

 

Range: 

The range of a skill should be considered a benefit (i.e. should cost some amount of tickets.). Added range gives direct advantages in competitive modes. This ones pretty basic. 

 

Teleports vs. Mobility Skills:

When evaluating a mobility skill, I believe it would be important to look at the range and speed at which the mobility skill moves. Teleports obviously being the fastest movement and having the largest conveyed benefit. However, for leaps and dashes, the distance and speed at which that distance is covered both are relevant sub-factors to consider imo. A slow mobility skill with short range plus a pre and after cast may move barely faster than a character with swiftness (swiftness is ~280 units/second. Eviscerate covers 300 units with a 3/4s cast, mobility stop on initial cast, and an after-cast). This results in an obvious animation lock that has little benefit from its actual mobility portion. I don't know how this would be accounted for, but I do think the speed and range of the mobility on a skill are important to consider. 

 

Resource Costs:

Some skills cost a resource (burst skills and adrenaline, revenant and energy, etc.). That resource consumed should expand the budget a skill has. I don't know how much, but I believe taking into account the consumption of a non-standard resource is important, as it adds 2 barriers to use instead of the typical 1 (cooldown and resource instead of just cooldown). 

 

Exponential Weighting:

I believe exponential weighting is useful for quite a few aspects of skills. The longer an effect goes on, the more impactful/game changing it becomes. For boons, this would be the duration. For conditions, the stacks should likely be weighted exponentially. So on and so forth. For example;

 

Conditions: (Condition duration*condition stacks^2) * Condition specific constant 

 - condition specific constant would be a value assigned to the unique condition type. Bleed would have the lowest constant as it has the lowest impact, burning the highest. For example, calculate this constant as damage relative to the base damage of bleed, burning would be a constant of 3.8366. 

 

Boons: (Duration^2)*(stacks)*(boon specific constant)

 

Block: (Duration^2)*Constant

 

These are just basic formulas, not actually refined to be applied in game, but they convey the basic thought process I think of when looking at a skill's values. I would imagine most skill balancing is done in a holistic manner, one to which formulas would be ill suited, but I feel portraying them as equations is a good way to represent them. 

 

Topic 2: Holistic View of a Power Budget

In the stream, it was mentioned that the Power Budget needs to be looked at not just within the skill, but within the weapon itself, which I fully agree with. However, I believe its important to note that the Power Budget available to a class should also take into account the class' profession mechanic. 

 

Given the profession mechanic is omni-present for each class, factoring in the benefits of a given mechanic are important to achieving proper balance imo. Mechanics that offer more cover to the down-time in a weapon set should reduce the overall budget available to the class, and mechanics that offer less in the way of supplementing shortcomings in weapon sets should provide a slightly larger Power Budget. 

 

These are not massive differences, as the mechanics, themselves, will hopefully fall under the same balance principle, having balanced budgets across professions, but they should still play a role in determining the budget afforded to a class' weapon kits imo. 

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this wall of text whomever made it this far. Please, let me know your thoughts on the specific thing's I brought up, or important things you think should be included, or how dumb I am. 

 

P.S.: Lan, I wrote this on a COMPUTER (way easier than mobile)! So it should be edge-lord friendly. 

Normally I find it unbelievably cringe to be so full of yourself that you ping the dev directly, but this is a fantastic post. Great work Oscuro, hope cmc sees this. 

[Zekent.3652]

13 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

And over taxed.

Other classes not paying enough taxes
I already notified them to the feds on their silly behavior 🤨

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

24 minutes ago, Zizekent.2398 said:

Other classes not paying enough taxes
I already notified them to the feds on their silly behavior 🤨

 

Blue child needs an audit.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

12 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Blue child needs an audit.

Fun experiment:

Google "Donald Trump taxes"

Pick random new article

Replace all references to Trump with " Guardian"