Honestly speaking, the November Patch needs a coherent vision

[itspomf.9523]

Won't repeat what's been said in the official thread on the balance philosophy, as there are no horses in Tyria to beat, but looking back on the direction the game has taken since the introduction of Specializations prior to Heart of Thorns, and the absolute mess End of Dragons has made of pretty much every single part of the game in myopic attempts to push new and contentious systems ... well, frankly?

Even if it's small, even if it's just some minor changes and tweaks, for me, the November Patch absolutely needs to communicate the intentions of the design and balance teams both for the patch itself and moving forward.

Because right now, it's terribly unclear where we're going, and after 8 years of watching Guild Wars 2 progressively become anything but what it started out as, I'm not sure I can follow any longer.  Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but this is no longer the series I fell in love with again back in August of 2012.

Edited October 29, 2022 by itspomf.9523
sometimes it's hard to make the words go

[floppypuppy.5789]

Ten years of the same old original GW2 would have been a rather boring time, I am glad they are trying new things.  Of course it would be nicer if there were fewer disasters, but then again a roller coaster with all ups and no downs would have its own set of problems.

Here's a question: why is it imperative that they "communicate their intentions" as you say? Adapting to changes and surprises is part of what I consider interesting as it provides a kind of puzzle to solve. I honestly don't understand the mindset that treats a game as a risk averse investment.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

2 minutes ago, floppypuppy.5789 said:

Ten years of the same old original GW2 would have been a rather boring time, I am glad they are trying new things.  Of course it would be nicer if there were fewer disasters, but then again a roller coaster with all ups and no downs would have its own set of problems.

Here's a question: why is it imperative that they "communicate their intentions" as you say? Adapting to changes and surprises is part of what I consider interesting as it provides a kind of puzzle to solve. I honestly don't understand the mindset that treats a game as a risk averse investment.

Because it can strongly depend on the way you are able to play and enjoy the game. On top of that learning new professions and getting proper gear setup can be quite a time & cash consuming activity. 

People are getting tired and fed up with bugs and imbalances that need to be fixed on the characters they enjoy to play. Anet keeps telling its customers to play the game however they want to play it, yet simultaniously do not offer viable ways to do so. 

[Asum.4960]

On 10/30/2022 at 1:14 AM, floppypuppy.5789 said:

Here's a question: why is it imperative that they "communicate their intentions" as you say? Adapting to changes and surprises is part of what I consider interesting as it provides a kind of puzzle to solve. I honestly don't understand the mindset that treats a game as a risk averse investment.

As a theory-/buildcrafter, this is exactly becoming my issue. There less and less are puzzles to solve. 

I feel like every patch we are slowly saying goodbye to more unique and interesting Traits, interactions and synergies which I have enjoyed over the decade. Too strong options are not nerfed to be just (if at all) weaker, but reworked to be less interesting and interactive instead. Unique but too niche options, rather than being improved, are uselessly bloated while still being non-competing or reworked to be bland and dead on arrival.

Every patch rotations seem to get more spammy, rather than figuring out which skills are worthwhile to use when, more often than not the best course of action is becoming to press everything off cooldown. 

Rather than figuring out the best Utility to bring for each encounter, "Utility" skills are more and more becoming weapon skill extensions or boon generators to blindly press off-CD. 

 

I'd love new post-patch puzzles to figure out what's viable and good, which new playstyles work now - but since that turned into just picking the same clear choices of passive damage modifiers/boon generators and the same damage/boon Utilities across all specialisations to be used off-cd, that's very rarely happening anymore.  

 

I too would be highly interested in a more detailed breakdown of the thoughts and intention behind some of the changes, because it's often been really hard to tell if this is a conscious direction for the game, or just the result of incompetence and ignorance towards the targeted professions/specs and what makes (or once made) them interesting, interactive and fun.

 

Especially now with their outlined philosophy published (and being in direct opposition to a staggering amount of changes over the last few years), the November patch will be quite the statement either way. 

I don't expect them to fix most, let alone all, things, but a clear vision in design and balance for the future in the changes they do make is imo crucial for this patch.

It that ends up being more of the same, then, well..

 

On 10/30/2022 at 1:14 AM, floppypuppy.5789 said:

Ten years of the same old original GW2 would have been a rather boring time, I am glad they are trying new things.

I hope they are. After 10 years of largely the same Traits, Weapons, Utilities, Stat Types, Runes and Sigils being meta and on my bar at all times, and the same others being largely dead and forgotten, I'd gladly see them try and shake things up - even if that results in some chaos which needs to be adjusted after.

[eXruina.4956]

coherent vision? you poor, naive fool. 🙄

 

trust me. with their history in balancing the game? you'll be happy if they give you nothing. in the words of gw2 balance team itself, your tears is salt for their popcorn. 💧🍿🤣

[Kozumi.5816]

The vision is to make GW2 into FF14.

Btw the FF14 player base is very unhappy with it's class design.

[otto.5684]

On 10/29/2022 at 6:32 PM, itspomf.9523 said:

Won't repeat what's been said in the official thread on the balance philosophy, as there are no horses in Tyria to beat, but looking back on the direction the game has taken since the introduction of Specializations prior to Heart of Thorns, and the absolute mess End of Dragons has made of pretty much every single part of the game in myopic attempts to push new and contentious systems ... well, frankly?

Even if it's small, even if it's just some minor changes and tweaks, for me, the November Patch absolutely needs to communicate the intentions of the design and balance teams both for the patch itself and moving forward.

Because right now, it's terribly unclear where we're going, and after 8 years of watching Guild Wars 2 progressively become anything but what it started out as, I'm not sure I can follow any longer.  Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but this is no longer the series I fell in love with again back in August of 2012.

Honestly, the philosophy post is kinda useless. “Dps role is to dps.” Duh! The question is why build A does more damage than build B. As for coherent vision, GL with that.

[SlayerXX.7138]

On 10/30/2022 at 12:32 AM, itspomf.9523 said:

Because right now, it's terribly unclear where we're going, and after 8 years of watching Guild Wars 2 progressively become anything but what it started out as, I'm not sure I can follow any longer.

What exactly is unclear?  While some changes are poorly executed it's most of the time pretty clear what the balance team is going for.

 

Edited November 5, 2022 by Albi.7250

[Dadnir.5038]

On 10/30/2022 at 12:32 AM, itspomf.9523 said:

Even if it's small, even if it's just some minor changes and tweaks, for me, the November Patch absolutely needs to communicate the intentions of the design and balance teams both for the patch itself and moving forward.

I can give you a standard sentence for every change based on the balance philosophy thread:

"We are slightly adjusting the value of [insert skill/trait/effect] within the power budget of [insert profession] because we felt it wasn't quite there. We hope that you understand that doing more than that would risk the loss of an important Hole in the role which garantee Diversity and Fun(?) in the game while keeping the very important possibility of a Counter."

Edited November 5, 2022 by Dadnir.5038

[Sansar.1302]

Guild Wars 2 have now too mutch support oriented specs , i belive gw2 is best when there is minimal support and every one support mainly themself.

[AlexndrTheGreat.8310]

I hope at some point they re-address what their balance goal is for elite specs compared to the base class. Or to at least let everyone get on the same page of what to expect from elite specs going forward.

When elites were first released, the goal was to allow new play styles and roles for classes that they didn’t have before. It became extremely obvious as time went on that elites were in almost every way better than the base classes. They tried to introduce “trade offs” for the elites in an attempt to limit their power compared to the base class, but from the past balance patch they’ve begun reverting a lot of these on various elites.

I at least want to hear from Anet what their new vision is for them now. Are they still meant to not completely overshadow the base class? Do we expect base classes to essentially be dead now? Is there going to be any balancing for base classes? Would have been a good topic to touch on in their philosophy stream.

[Zaret.1450]

On 11/7/2022 at 5:51 AM, Sansar.1302 said:

Guild Wars 2 have now too mutch support oriented specs , i belive gw2 is best when there is minimal support and every one support mainly themself.

This doesnt work in every game mode, maybe in pvp and roqming wvw builds, but for pve(not open world) and zerg builds, asking for a build to give everything to itself and be usefull in other aspects, dps etcetera, is very dificult.

[Jianyu.7065]

On 10/29/2022 at 7:14 PM, floppypuppy.5789 said:

Ten years of the same old original GW2 would have been a rather boring time, I am glad they are trying new things.  Of course it would be nicer if there were fewer disasters, but then again a roller coaster with all ups and no downs would have its own set of problems.

Here's a question: why is it imperative that they "communicate their intentions" as you say? Adapting to changes and surprises is part of what I consider interesting as it provides a kind of puzzle to solve. I honestly don't understand the mindset that treats a game as a risk averse investment.

 

Supporting horrible changes in order to accommodate the adaptation "puzzle" doesn't = fun.

 

At some point we have to collectively agree to be on the same side - since we have, the large majority, paid for this game, which means together we have a voice in articulating our disappointment. But this doesn't work if we dismiss the idea that we have to work together.