Explaining Complexity, Diversity: Balance Philosophy

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

As some people here know, I've spoken about this topic for years, but only through comments and never through an actual topic . Looking at the recent shift in balance philosophy over the summer, there have been more of the following words being used and misused in discussions by players of the game and by Arenanet themselves; Diversity, Complexity, and  Homogenization and it's compliment Heterogeneity.

 

In an effort to straighten out misinformation, I want to make a "one stop shop" post where one can refer to to understand these concepts as how they are understood in the scientific fields they are derived from. Much of the misinformation comes from those words being slapped around with little regard to those research fields (to be honest it just straight up annoys me). I will be providing sources so that people can look this stuff up for themselves and be reassured that everything I'm saying is referenced. 

 

For the record, I've never made a topic on this subject, I've only explained it in comments, as the purpose is to direct these ideas towards other people on the forum, and never directly at Arenanet. With this post, is an attempt to communicate directly with Arenanet and to players in kind. 

 

Complexity

Complexity is the most important topic involved in the discussion of the game and it's balance problem. In order to talk about Complexity, first requires understanding what homogeneity, and heterogeneity are. Ask yourself the question: "what does it mean for something to be complex?" There are many intuitive and naïve notions of trying to describe what complexity is...but a generic example is that a twisted ball of hair is complex...and a nice smooth sphere is simple...and not complex. We imagine that if one were to engineer or understand what it means for objects or systems to be simple or complex, is how "messy" the object or system is. These notions are a bit too archaic and not precise enough to use formally, so the following is an example of how mainstream bodies of science, describe complexity:

 

We have 3 sequences, each with 20 letters from the 26 letter alphabet listed out in some order. Each sequence also has a corresponding image you can view, that represents that sequence of letters as a grid of squares, where each color of the alphabet has a unique color, being read from left to right :

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

BGOOBGOKBGOOADOOBGOO

ZJOMNZHIQRHTNMOADSST

 

And we ask of each sequence how we would describe them. Sequence 1 seems simple...sequence 2 seems kind of simple but maybe a little more complicated...and sequence 3 looks pretty complicated.

 

Notice the properties for each sequence. The first sequence of letters are all the same or homogenous. The third sequence of letters are almost completely random/completely different from one another (heterogenous) The second sequence is some state in between.

 

These states are classified by a number of bodies of science in slightly varying ways, but the most visually obvious is the 4 cellular automaton classes by Computer Scientist Stephan Wolfram made in the 1980's. The 4 classes being Homogenous, Patterned, Random, and Complex (1-4 respectively).

 

The above is supposed to illustrate and prove that these 3 concepts...homogeneity diversity and complexity are not independent, they are deeply related. 

 

We can ask a few more qualitative questions about what this relation means. Say I asked you for each sequence of letters, to predict what the next one is supposed to be. We almost immediately know that for sequence 1, you'd say the obvious next letter should be A. If I asked you to predict the next letter for sequence 3, well...you would have no idea...it could be any of the 26 letters, there's nothing there for you in the past, to determine what the next state of the sequence should be in the future. For the 2nd sequence, you can kind of say that "BGOO" might be next...but with some level of unreducible error and uncertainty.

 

The ability to predict what the next thing that is going to happen in a system, is inextricably related to the complexity of the system we are looking at, in the case above, a sequence of letters.

 

The above probe of how prediction is related to this subject is important in understanding game strategy, the balance of players in games playing builds, and what a meta-game is in a definitive formal sense. A game of homogenous players playing the same builds, means everything about that game will be predictable...repetitive. Conversely, a fully heterogenous game would be completely random where one can not form a strategy of any kind to win or lose against the opponent, then to do a random strategy themselves. A Metagame, is the game in which builds have settled to the most optimal builds, meaning a predictable winning strategy has been established. The shallow metagame (that consists of maybe 1 or 2 builds) is therefor in equivalence to a rather boring homogenous state of the game. Other's would say this is equilibrium but we will get to that part in a moment.

 

The above is where one might think to stop probing the relation between these three things...but the relation is much much deeper. Suppose you asked the question of "why" are they related...and what if I told you that all three concepts aren't just related but are actually all the same thing. How can it be that homogeneity and heterogeneity, simplicity and complexity, uniformity and randomness, be the same construct?

 

Simplicity

Suppose I gave you the following set of options: a machine 0 and 1's, the 26 letters of the alphabet or 1000 colors... and I asked you, using just permutations of these objects, which is more capable of constructing a well-written fiction book...the answers might be quite mixed. Some would say the computer is the best choice...some would say the 26 letters of the alphabet...some would say the 1000 colors. The answer is that all three of them, are equivalently capable of creating that book. How this is the case is non-trivial and can be a bit technical...but the reason they are the same, is that each of them can simulate one another, and therefor are Turing universal meaning that they can given the right instructions compute all computable functions. A machine using a sequence of 0's and 1's can construct the 26 letters of the alphabet (it's how I'm writing this post right now!)...and can construct 1000 colors (this is how you are able to see this text on your screen!) and I can do the same in reverse: using 1000 colors create an encoding of those colors to describe an alphabet, or a sequence of 0's and 1's and so on.

 

On a technical level, this property to do this is due to the isomorphism of the statespace of the possible configurations (you can think of it as a total symmetry group), where the above assumes that space approaches infinity (infinitely long tape of a turing machine)

 

Imagine you have a 20x20 grid and you were to map each configuration 1 to 1 to another grid where each mapping is a function that tells each cell what to do (what color it should change to). Therefor every permutation of this grid has a forward and inverse function that can take it by and between all possible states. It means that all homogenous configurations, and all random and complex configurations simply need a function (a rule) to take it from one state to another.

 

The above explanation is needed (and is a proof) for the validity of the following statement :

 

simplicity = complexity.

 

That a set of simple constructs can lead to complex and interesting behavior based on their rules (the rules being how the construct transforms from one configuration to another.)

 

The Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Now we can finally probe the issue with the discussions in this balance philosophy topic. We basically just established that these constructs : Homogeneity = Heterogeneity = Complexity = Simplicity... that they are all just one construct (abstractly that construct can be thought of as just "system evolution through the application of rules"). Complexity as it's often discussed here, is thought of as being "a separate thing" or a "messy thing" when as shown above, it is clearly not the case. It is this complexity that is fully responsible for our existence...why it is so nuanced complicated and diverse. The ability to comprehend this topic is absolutely necessary in how to create games and manufacture balance in game design especially if the objective is to mimic balance and diversity of natural systems like biology. You create a game based on rules...and from those components following those rules comes behaviors... 

 

you want to make simple rules to yield complex behavior (not to simple behavior) and this is done by how you setup the rules of the game...

 

So what is the equivalent of rules in guild wars 2 balance? It is the mechanics of skills. simple mechanics that have the right ruleset can lead to complex behavior. thus the balance of the game is ingrained in it's design not numbers.. not player feedback...not testing. It all comes down to the design of the mechanics of the game...and everything else is an accessory to that fact. It is not just balance but everything is dependent on this...including how you make money from players. What people do...and how they interact with your platform and with each other all comes down to what rules you make them follow and whether those rules lead to certain behavior...the choice of whether that behavior is going to be simple or complex, is ingrained in the mechanics of the game, and therefor Arena-net is ultimately responsible for it's potential and it's shortcomings.

 

Another thing that is important to state...can the skills you made even interact with other skills in the first place? If you make a skill and it does only one thing and doesn't interact with any other skills...then it is dead on arrival...you killed all the complex behavior it could have had by chopping off it's legs, gouging out its eyes and trying to expect it to walk and talk. the complexity of the skill and obviously the rules that it follows, is directly correlated to how large it's interaction space is (Referred to by Will Wright as the Probability Space). Limiting options is therefor, exactly how one kills diversity and gives you nothing but repetitive homogenous behavior. Looking into this problem when you approach the balancing in this game requires a deep respect for this notion....that the more you try to balance and limit a game, the less diverse (and therefor less balanced) it will tend to become.

 

So lets contextualize this quote from the Balance philosophy post :

 

 

We want to design builds that allow players with a high level of mastery to demonstrate their prowess and be appropriately rewarded in terms of effectiveness. At the same time, we want to ensure that there are builds for every profession that require less mastery to be effective. These builds should allow players to succeed in parties and clear content, while still having room for them to improve their mastery over the combat system and increase their effectiveness.

This is also an important consideration for balance in competitive game modes, as the builds that are effective can vary significantly between different levels of mastery. Our goal is to create a fun and diverse metagame for as many players as possible, and that involves addressing builds that are problematic at any level, even if they aren't problematic at every level. When bringing down a build that only overperforms at a particular level, we'll try to target changes to minimize the impact on other levels or attempt to otherwise compensate in a way that is less problematic at the targeted level.

 

The first issue with this statement: "We want to design builds..." no...that is not your job. I'll repeat that again, It is not your job to design builds that is the job of the players. Your job Arenanet is to create the skills so that the players can design builds. How you create those skills is like I mentioned before, dependent on their ability to interact with other skills...and what rules that they follow.

 

The second issue with this statement : "Our goal is to create a fun and diverse metagame for as many players as possible, and that involves addressing builds that are problematic at any level, even if they aren't problematic at every level." Again that is not your job Arenanet. You're job is not to design the metagame...that is what the players do. You're job is...let's here it...to create the skills of the game so that the players construct the meta game. If you do that job correctly, the metagame would be fun and diverse and complex, it would be interesting and nuanced, not homogenous and boring. how does one do the job correctly? By constructing the skills to follow simple rules that lead to complicated behavior.

 

I hope the repetition here is helping sell the message for what is being explained. I'm not targeting the syntax or grammar... I'm proving a point that to really get to the bottom of a balance philosophy that will actually work, requires understanding exactly the implications of what your actions are even if you don't know that these kinds of actions passively destroy the game. This is also the issue with Purity of Purpose as a balance philosophy. Purity of Purpose means you are designing for the game, the roles people should play, and not letting the players decide via natural selection what roles actually need to be played at any given time. I'll repeat it again...designing the roles of the game isn't your job Arenanet. It is the job of the players to establish roles of builds that they play.

 

To summarize the point being said here : Stop trying to orchestrate the design of builds, roles, or the meta... and focus on designing skills that follow simple rules that create complex behavior...and have these skills be able to interact with lots of other skills. That's about it...

 

Tradeoffs is also a big part of the balance discussion, but this is a bit too much right now. I'll refer people to this thread, to read more about how trades offs, and their how scale invariance (a symmetry that comes from the isomorphic properties of the constructs here) are related to balance at all scales, which one of the issues Arenanet deals with when approaching balance problems at said scales.

 

Conclusion

I hope I explained this subject in a way that is definitive, and final in some sense. It took a very long time to really get to the bottom of this topic myself, as it is beyond extensive (yes it goes as far as theory of everything research... not even joking). Given that the trajectory of the game is changing in what is potentially a more positive direction (since the February 2020 balance philosophy was the total opposite of positive direction) I'd like to see that their philosophy is being fact checked and executed properly and not just gonna be another balance failure...especially when they are using these words which are truly the answer to the balance problem, if they screw that up it will forever lock the game in balance hell without an end in sight...so the point is that this is the last chance and they can't screw it up because navigating away from complexity/diversity as the focus pf game balance will be a death sentence to an actual balance trajectory heading in an actual direction...but they have to get it right.

 

Below is a linked video of an interview of Stephan Wolfram, the main computer scientist behind the advances of the topic of complexity and simplicity being equivalent to one another in recent years. Yes, it is within the context of physics, but what is being established by this computer scientist is that those two hemisphere's aren't separate they are adjunct, where reality, and computer games (programs) are both, computational constructs (systems undergoing the application of rules.)

 

Cheers,

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Lysico.4906]

Huge wall of text.  Not going to read it.  Anet is not invested in pvp.    I am dirty ranked casual gold/plat 1 players.   
 

Just here for the toxic lol’s and some pips

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

3 minutes ago, Lysico.4906 said:

Huge wall of text.  Not going to read it.  Anet is not invested in pvp.    I am dirty ranked casual gold/plat 1 players.   
 

Just here for the toxic lol’s and some pips

fair enough. I don’t blame you, it’s long asf. That’s why I don’t write about it much anymore

[Eugchriss.2046]

Sir, this is a Wendy's

[NotFound.7813]

2 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

As some people here know, I've spoken about this topic for years, but only through comments and never through an actual topic . Looking at the recent shift in balance philosophy over the summer, there have been more of the following words being used and misused in discussions by players of the game and by Arenanet themselves; Diversity, Complexity, and  Homogenization and it's compliment Heterogeneity.

 

In an effort to straighten out misinformation, I want to make a "one stop shop" post where one can refer to to understand these concepts as how they are understood in the scientific fields they are derived from. Much of the misinformation comes from those words being slapped around with little regard to those research fields (to be honest it just straight up annoys me). I will be providing sources so that people can look this stuff up for themselves and be reassured that everything I'm saying is referenced. 

 

For the record, I've never made a topic on this subject, I've only explained it in comments, as the purpose is to direct these ideas towards other people on the forum, and never directly at Arenanet. With this post, is an attempt to communicate directly with Arenanet and to players in kind. 

 

Complexity

Complexity is the most important topic involved in the discussion of the game and it's balance problem. In order to talk about Complexity, first requires understanding what homogeneity, and heterogeneity are. Ask yourself the question: "what does it mean for something to be complex?" There are many intuitive and naïve notions of trying to describe what complexity is...but a generic example is that a twisted ball of hair is complex...and a nice smooth sphere is simple...and not complex. We imagine that if one were to engineer or understand what it means for objects or systems to be simple or complex, is how "messy" the object or system is. These notions are a bit too archaic and not precise enough to use formally, so the following is an example of how mainstream bodies of science, describe complexity:

 

We have 3 sequences, each with 20 letters from the 26 letter alphabet listed out in some order. Each sequence also has a corresponding image you can view, that represents that sequence of letters as a grid of squares, where each color of the alphabet has a unique color, being read from left to right :

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

BGOOBGOKBGOOADOOBGOO

ZJOMNZHIQRHTNMOADSST

 

And we ask of each sequence how we would describe them. Sequence 1 seems simple...sequence 2 seems kind of simple but maybe a little more complicated...and sequence 3 looks pretty complicated.

 

Notice the properties for each sequence. The first sequence of letters are all the same or homogenous. The third sequence of letters are almost completely random/completely different from one another (heterogenous) The second sequence is some state in between.

 

These states are classified by a number of bodies of science in slightly varying ways, but the most visually obvious is the 4 cellular automaton classes by Computer Scientist Stephan Wolfram made in the 1980's. The 4 classes being Homogenous, Patterned, Random, and Complex (1-4 respectively).

 

The above is supposed to illustrate and prove that these 3 concepts...homogeneity diversity and complexity are not independent, they are deeply related. 

 

We can ask a few more qualitative questions about what this relation means. Say I asked you for each sequence of letters, to predict what the next one is supposed to be. We almost immediately know that for sequence 1, you'd say the obvious next letter should be A. If I asked you to predict the next letter for sequence 3, well...you would have no idea...it could be any of the 26 letters, there's nothing there for you in the past, to determine what the next state of the sequence should be in the future. For the 2nd sequence, you can kind of say that "BGOO" might be next...but with some level of unreducible error and uncertainty.

 

The ability to predict what the next thing that is going to happen in a system, is inextricably related to the complexity of the system we are looking at, in the case above, a sequence of letters.

 

The above probe of how prediction is related to this subject is important in understanding game strategy, the balance of players in games playing builds, and what a meta-game is in a definitive formal sense. A game of homogenous players playing the same builds, means everything about that game will be predictable...repetitive. Conversely, a fully heterogenous game would be completely random where one can not form a strategy of any kind to win or lose against the opponent, then to do a random strategy themselves. A Metagame, is the game in which builds have settled to the most optimal builds, meaning a predictable winning strategy has been established. The shallow metagame (that consists of maybe 1 or 2 builds) is therefor in equivalence to a rather boring homogenous state of the game. Other's would say this is equilibrium but we will get to that part in a moment.

 

The above is where one might think to stop probing the relation between these three things...but the relation is much much deeper. Suppose you asked the question of "why" are they related...and what if I told you that all three concepts aren't just related but are actually all the same thing. How can it be that homogeneity and heterogeneity, simplicity and complexity, uniformity and randomness, be the same construct?

 

Simplicity

Suppose I gave you the following set of options: a machine 0 and 1's, the 26 letters of the alphabet or 1000 colors... and I asked you, using just permutations of these objects, which is more capable of constructing a well-written fiction book...the answers might be quite mixed. Some would say the computer is the best choice...some would say the 26 letters of the alphabet...some would say the 1000 colors. The answer is that all three of them, are equivalently capable of creating that book. How this is the case is non-trivial and can be a bit technical...but the reason they are the same, is that each of them can simulate one another, and therefor are Turing universal meaning that they can given the right instructions compute all computable functions. A machine using a sequence of 0's and 1's can construct the 26 letters of the alphabet (it's how I'm writing this post right now!)...and can construct 1000 colors (this is how you are able to see this text on your screen!) and I can do the same in reverse: using 1000 colors create an encoding of those colors to describe an alphabet, or a sequence of 0's and 1's and so on.

 

On a technical level, this property to do this is due to the isomorphism of the statespace of the possible configurations (you can think of it as a total symmetry group), where the above assumes that space approaches infinity (infinitely long tape of a turing machine)

 

Imagine you have a 20x20 grid and you were to map each configuration 1 to 1 to another grid where each mapping is a function that tells each cell what to do (what color it should change to). Therefor every permutation of this grid has a forward and inverse function that can take it by and between all possible states. It means that all homogenous configurations, and all random and complex configurations simply need a function (a rule) to take it from one state to another.

 

The above explanation is needed (and is a proof) for the validity of the following statement :

 

simplicity = complexity.

 

That a set of simple constructs can lead to complex and interesting behavior based on their rules (the rules being how the construct transforms from one configuration to another.)

 

The Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Now we can finally probe the issue with the discussions in this balance philosophy topic. We basically just established that these constructs : Homogeneity = Heterogeneity = Complexity = Simplicity... that they are all just one construct (abstractly that construct can be thought of as just "system evolution through the application of rules"). Complexity as it's often discussed here, is thought of as being "a separate thing" or a "messy thing" when as shown above, it is clearly not the case. It is this complexity that is fully responsible for our existence...why it is so nuanced complicated and diverse. The ability to comprehend this topic is absolutely necessary in how to create games and manufacture balance in game design especially if the objective is to mimic balance and diversity of natural systems like biology. You create a game based on rules...and from those components following those rules comes behaviors... 

 

you want to make simple rules to yield complex behavior (not to simple behavior) and this is done by how you setup the rules of the game...

 

So what is the equivalent of rules in guild wars 2 balance? It is the mechanics of skills. simple mechanics that have the right ruleset can lead to complex behavior. thus the balance of the game is ingrained in it's design not numbers.. not player feedback...not testing. It all comes down to the design of the mechanics of the game...and everything else is an accessory to that fact. It is not just balance but everything is dependent on this...including how you make money from players. What people do...and how they interact with your platform and with each other all comes down to what rules you make them follow and whether those rules lead to certain behavior...the choice of whether that behavior is going to be simple or complex, is ingrained in the mechanics of the game, and therefor Arena-net is ultimately responsible for it's potential and it's shortcomings.

 

Another thing that is important to state...can the skills you made even interact with other skills in the first place? If you make a skill and it does only one thing and doesn't interact with any other skills...then it is dead on arrival...you killed all the complex behavior it could have had by chopping off it's legs, gouging out its eyes and trying to expect it to walk and talk. the complexity of the skill and obviously the rules that it follows, is directly correlated to how large it's interaction space is (Referred to by Will Wright as the Probability Space). Limiting options is therefor, exactly how one kills diversity and gives you nothing but repetitive homogenous behavior. Looking into this problem when you approach the balancing in this game requires a deep respect for this notion....that the more you try to balance and limit a game, the less diverse (and therefor less balanced) it will tend to become.

 

So lets contextualize this quote from the Balance philosophy post :

 

 

We want to design builds that allow players with a high level of mastery to demonstrate their prowess and be appropriately rewarded in terms of effectiveness. At the same time, we want to ensure that there are builds for every profession that require less mastery to be effective. These builds should allow players to succeed in parties and clear content, while still having room for them to improve their mastery over the combat system and increase their effectiveness.

This is also an important consideration for balance in competitive game modes, as the builds that are effective can vary significantly between different levels of mastery. Our goal is to create a fun and diverse metagame for as many players as possible, and that involves addressing builds that are problematic at any level, even if they aren't problematic at every level. When bringing down a build that only overperforms at a particular level, we'll try to target changes to minimize the impact on other levels or attempt to otherwise compensate in a way that is less problematic at the targeted level.

 

The first issue with this statement: "We want to design builds..." no...that is not your job. I'll repeat that again, It is not your job to design builds that is the job of the players. Your job Arenanet is to create the skills so that the players can design builds. How you create those skills is like I mentioned before, dependent on their ability to interact with other skills...and what rules that they follow.

 

The second issue with this statement : "Our goal is to create a fun and diverse metagame for as many players as possible, and that involves addressing builds that are problematic at any level, even if they aren't problematic at every level." Again that is not your job Arenanet. You're job is not to design the metagame...that is what the players do. You're job is...let's here it...to create the skills of the game so that the players construct the meta game. If you do that job correctly, the metagame would be fun and diverse and complex, it would be interesting and nuanced, not homogenous and boring. how does one do the job correctly? By constructing the skills to follow simple rules that lead to complicated behavior.

 

I hope the repetition here is helping sell the message for what is being explained. I'm not targeting the syntax or grammar... I'm proving a point that to really get to the bottom of a balance philosophy that will actually work, requires understanding exactly the implications of what your actions are even if you don't know that these kinds of actions passively destroy the game. This is also the issue with Purity of Purpose as a balance philosophy. Purity of Purpose means you are designing for the game, the roles people should play, and not letting the players decide via natural selection what roles actually need to be played at any given time. I'll repeat it again...designing the roles of the game isn't your job Arenanet. It is the job of the players to establish roles of builds that they play.

 

To summarize the point being said here : Stop trying to orchestrate the design of builds, roles, or the meta... and focus on designing skills that follow simple rules that create complex behavior...and have these skills be able to interact with lots of other skills. That's about it...

 

Tradeoffs is also a big part of the balance discussion, but this is a bit too much right now. I'll refer people to this thread, to read more about how trades offs, and their how scale invariance (a symmetry that comes from the isomorphic properties of the constructs here) are related to balance at all scales, which one of the issues Arenanet deals with when approaching balance problems at said scales.

 

Conclusion

I hope I explained this subject in a way that is definitive, and final in some sense. It took a very long time to really get to the bottom of this topic myself, as it is beyond extensive (yes it goes as far as theory of everything research... not even joking). Given that the trajectory of the game is changing in what is potentially a more positive direction (since the February 2020 balance philosophy was the total opposite of positive direction) I'd like to see that their philosophy is being fact checked and executed properly and not just gonna be another balance failure...especially when they are using these words which are truly the answer to the balance problem, if they screw that up it will forever lock the game in balance hell without an end in sight...so the point is that this is the last chance and they can't screw it up because navigating away from complexity/diversity as the focus pf game balance will be a death sentence to an actual balance trajectory heading in an actual direction...but they have to get it right.

 

Below is a linked video of an interview of Stephan Wolfram, the main computer scientist behind the advances of the topic of complexity and simplicity being equivalent to one another in recent years. Yes, it is within the context of physics, but what is being established by this computer scientist is that those two hemisphere's aren't separate they are adjunct, where reality, and computer games (programs) are both, computational constructs (systems undergoing the application of rules.)

 

Cheers,

 

 

 

Your definition of what balance is its just delusional. 

 

For sure that if you desing a kittenton of random skills/builds there will end up being a balanced win/lose ratios between classes. 

 

But thats no near of what a competitive game is meant to be. Without a scheme of how you want your classes to interact with each other theres no strategy involved, any skill or mechanic therefore any kind of fun. 

 

For example, applying your way lf thinking necrl shouldnt be designed as it is, a teamfighter oriented claas w certain trade offs. You can give necro blocks, freely ports or whatever. Make it a great sidenoder. Why not? In my eternal list of builds there will be anything that kills necro. Therefore its balanced.  But thats no near a healthy pvp enviroment. First cuz it implies the existence of rock/paper/scissor type of gameplay.  And second cuz it kills any mental scheme players form in order to create a strategy game.

 

 

Overwatch, LoL, Dota all has a predefined scheme of interactions so players can process thats happening and form strategies and skillful gameplay.

 

Chess pieces arent balanced when it comes of your way of thinking. To make chess a balanced game you would need to add a long list of new moves/pieces that would make queen not a top piece. But that wouldnt make chess bettee. Cuz there wouldnt be any scheme to follow or chess wouldnt be simply too difficult for human brain to be played.

 

 

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

2 hours ago, NotFound.7813 said:

Your definition of what balance is its just delusional. 

 

For sure that if you desing a kittenton of random skills/builds there will end up being a balanced win/lose ratios between classes. 

 

But thats no near of what a competitive game is meant to be. Without a scheme of how you want your classes to interact with each other theres no strategy involved, any skill or mechanic therefore any kind of fun. 

 

For example, applying your way lf thinking necrl shouldnt be designed as it is, a teamfighter oriented claas w certain trade offs. You can give necro blocks, freely ports or whatever. Make it a great sidenoder. Why not? In my eternal list of builds there will be anything that kills necro. Therefore its balanced.  But thats no near a healthy pvp enviroment. First cuz it implies the existence of rock/paper/scissor type of gameplay.  And second cuz it kills any mental scheme players form in order to create a strategy game.

 

 

Overwatch, LoL, Dota all has a predefined scheme of interactions so players can process thats happening and form strategies and skillful gameplay.

 

Chess pieces arent balanced when it comes of your way of thinking. To make chess a balanced game you would need to add a long list of new moves/pieces that would make queen not a top piece. But that wouldnt make chess bettee. Cuz there wouldnt be any scheme to follow or chess wouldnt be simply too difficult for human brain to be played.

 

 

maybe there was a slight miscommunication because this wasn’t explained in the post, but balance arises from selective forces by proxy of just things existing. And that these things that exist are different from one another.

 

I’ll put it in the form of this example: Sharks, Fish and Whales do not exist in a Rock Paper Scissors dynamic. They just abstractly exist in the space of possible creatures that can exist. They were selected for among the randomness that is the existence of all possible creatures and continue to exist as they fight to survive.

 

The existence of builds operate in the same fashion. Builds abstractly exist in the space of possible builds that can exist from different assemblies of unique skills. The builds that are able to accomplish their goals, will be selected for and be played again. The ones that can not achieve some kind of meaningful goal will not be played and “die out” 
 

Balance is achieved by virtue of many things simply existing, their continued existence in the meta game being based of what goals they can achieve. Out there in the space of possibilities everything will find somewhere where they will be useful and this is the balance you would see in nature.

 

Rock Paper Scissors is just one dynamic that arises but it is by far not the only kind of relationship. A Shark and a sucker fish depend on one another for their survival…tape worms depend on their hosts to continue their survival parasitically…and the list goes on in terms of how things tend to “find a way” to fit into the ecosystem of the dynamic setup by the environment.

 

How diversity creates “the balance of nature” is that because as the space of possibilities gets larger, outliers are more and more likely to encounter the possibility of an opponent that will have the properties that counter them. 
 

Conversely the less things that exist and the smaller the possibility space the more likely outliers will not have a counter that exists out there to subdue them and this is what leads to more and more homogenous and dominant meta games.

 

just as there will exist counters to your build, so to will you find what builds you counter in the space of possibilities and this is the creation of roles and how one finds them in a game that is balanced. In certain literatures this can be called anthropic reasoning. 

 

In addition and ironically, Purity of Purpose as it was implemented 5 years ago was instated with the exact purpose of giving hard counters to each class in the form of Rock Paper Scissors. If you played a thief, you were bound to be a +1 Decap Bot and you were designed to always counter Necromancer…and if you play Necromancer your designed role was to play in the team fight and strip boons from support classes and get farmed by thieves. In other words you were designed without tools to adapt. They simply didn’t exist for your class and the game became defined by what class you decided to pick rather than what skills you could have picked or how well you played your skills.

 

With regards to Chess, Chess is one of these interestingly complex games like Go, that yield complex behavior based on simple rules and in fact there are games of chess that are played on infinite chess boards with infinite pieces (to within approximation obviously) which is a testament to how the possibility space increases the games complexity.

 

the computer scientist I referenced in the original post Stephan Wolfram wrote a paper based on the study of these games through the purview of his work. There’s many things to say about those studies but for the most part, the games complexity sits inside the space of possible moves one can make on the board and that these sets of moves are what are “diverse,” and one can think of each possible history of assemblies of moves is like a “creature” that eventually dies out or dominate and survive as winning strategies against other strategies they compete with at that particular moment in their evolution.

That paper here : https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2022/06/games-and-puzzles-as-multicomputational-systems/

Just to quote a kind of TLDR of that paper (since i don't expect people to actually read it, it can be a bit dense, but still interesting:

"We’ve now gone through many examples of games and puzzles. And in each case we’ve explored the multiway graphs that encapsulate the whole spectrum of their possible behavior. So what do we conclude? The most obvious point is that when games and puzzles seem to us difficult—and potentially “interesting”—it’s some kind of reflection of apparent complexity in the multiway graph. Or, put another way, it’s when we find the multiway graph somehow “difficult to decode” that we get a rich and engaging game or puzzle."

Cheers,

Edited November 3, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[oscuro.9720]

Always interesting information, Justice. Not all of which I agree with, but also much of which I do agree with. Enjoyed reading this post, take care 🙂 

 

P.S. I’ve read a decent bit of Wolframs work/listened to lectures since we last spoke, it’s been a very nice addition to my catalog of things to listen to while working, so thank you for that. 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

You need an editor, badly. 

In short, one great way to lose your entire audience is to write soliloquies like that OP.

I mean, just say you want GW2 balance to be like chess and be done with it.  Sure, that has issues as even chess is a pretty much 'solved' game at the GM level, but it at least lends to your 'simple into complex' stance without the entire 10k word diatribe. 

Edited November 3, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

38 minutes ago, oscuro.9720 said:

Always interesting information, Justice. Not all of which I agree with, but also much of which I do agree with. Enjoyed reading this post, take care 🙂 

 

P.S. I’ve read a decent bit of Wolframs work/listened to lectures since we last spoke, it’s been a very nice addition to my catalog of things to listen to while working, so thank you for that. 

 

Hey man, thanks i appreciate it.

 

Ultimately, the purpose of the post is to straighten out what those words actually mean with respect to scientific bodies, more-so then trying to convince Arena-net of how to balance their game. Those words (Complexity/Homogeneity/Diversity) are all things that are in focus since they use this language in their posting, and in my view they have misused these terms from time to time, often stating, and shortly after supplying an explanation that is the opposite of what the words actually mean (homogenizing a set of skills for example doesn't make it diverse, which is something I read when crossing by their posts)

 

About Wolfram, I'm glad man. I apply these concepts to other areas in my life and they have served me extremely well, so the information, aside from Guild Wars 2, is incredibly valuable...I've made business models, awesome systems for the people i work with for the purpose of optimization, and just a slew of other things from the insights of not only that scientist, but this general body of research as a whole.

Edited November 3, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

19 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

I mean, just say you want GW2 balance to be like chess and be done with it.  Sure, that has issues as even chess is a pretty much 'solved' game at the GM level, but it at least lends to your 'simple into complex' stance without the entire 10k word diatribe. 

 

This is not what was said at all actually...that's the reason for the 10,000 word diatribe (and referenced links), is that this is not how you are supposed to interpret what was said. I guess either way I still failed to explain how this all works if this is what you took away from the posting.

 

the paraphrase "simplicity = complexity" is non-trivial...and the video I linked explains that clearly...that it is often mistaken that in order to make something complex means "having to put complexity into the game" and he says "this is not the case...you can do that with putting almost nothing into the game to get the same result."

[Sahne.6950]

tldr

Edited November 3, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Goldilock.2584]

Anet does not read nor speak to pvpers about pvp and how it can i prove. We all could go into great detail make the safest and most rewarding meta make changes to game mode and even offer to pay for the work and they still will not do it. Over the years i have learnt the forums have 0 value and mean nothing for anets game development. Its a forum for promotions with options to chat to each other about game modes nothing more. So all the people i see on here posting daily are wasteing their time when they speak on anything about the game. 

They inprove pvp around data on most played aswell as what is winning ATs and nurf around meta. And the nurfs are never the correct one they just delete builds its never a trim of the beard its always a full shave.  

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by Goldilock.2584

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

10 hours ago, NotFound.7813 said:

Your definition of what balance is its just delusional.

No it's not.

Look at the literal game of actual rock/paper/scissors IRL using your hands vs. someone else's hands.

This is far more simple than the bloated designs in GW2 as example, yet it is far more complex. In GW2 you already know the same rotations a Reaper is going to try to do to deal damage to you, but in simple rock/paper/scissors with your hands, you have no idea what the person is going to throw next.

[NotFound.7813]

11 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

maybe there was a slight miscommunication because this wasn’t explained in the post, but balance arises from selective forces by proxy of just things existing. And that these things that exist are different from one another.

 

I’ll put it in the form of this example: Sharks, Fish and Whales do not exist in a Rock Paper Scissors dynamic. They just abstractly exist in the space of possible creatures that can exist. They were selected for among the randomness that is the existence of all possible creatures and continue to exist as they fight to survive.

 

The existence of builds operate in the same fashion. Builds abstractly exist in the space of possible builds that can exist from different assemblies of unique skills. The builds that are able to accomplish their goals, will be selected for and be played again. The ones that can not achieve some kind of meaningful goal will not be played and “die out” 
 

Balance is achieved by virtue of many things simply existing, their continued existence in the meta game being based of what goals they can achieve. Out there in the space of possibilities everything will find somewhere where they will be useful and this is the balance you would see in nature.

 

Rock Paper Scissors is just one dynamic that arises but it is by far not the only kind of relationship. A Shark and a sucker fish depend on one another for their survival…tape worms depend on their hosts to continue their survival parasitically…and the list goes on in terms of how things tend to “find a way” to fit into the ecosystem of the dynamic setup by the environment.

 

How diversity creates “the balance of nature” is that because as the space of possibilities gets larger, outliers are more and more likely to encounter the possibility of an opponent that will have the properties that counter them. 
 

Conversely the less things that exist and the smaller the possibility space the more likely outliers will not have a counter that exists out there to subdue them and this is what leads to more and more homogenous and dominant meta games.

 

just as there will exist counters to your build, so to will you find what builds you counter in the space of possibilities and this is the creation of roles and how one finds them in a game that is balanced. In certain literatures this can be called anthropic reasoning. 

 

In addition and ironically, Purity of Purpose as it was implemented 5 years ago was instated with the exact purpose of giving hard counters to each class in the form of Rock Paper Scissors. If you played a thief, you were bound to be a +1 Decap Bot and you were designed to always counter Necromancer…and if you play Necromancer your designed role was to play in the team fight and strip boons from support classes and get farmed by thieves. In other words you were designed without tools to adapt. They simply didn’t exist for your class and the game became defined by what class you decided to pick rather than what skills you could have picked or how well you played your skills.

 

With regards to Chess, Chess is one of these interestingly complex games like Go, that yield complex behavior based on simple rules and in fact there are games of chess that are played on infinite chess boards with infinite pieces (to within approximation obviously) which is a testament to how the possibility space increases the games complexity.

 

the computer scientist I referenced in the original post Stephan Wolfram wrote a paper based on the study of these games through the purview of his work. There’s many things to say about those studies but for the most part, the games complexity sits inside the space of possible moves one can make on the board and that these sets of moves are what are “diverse,” and one can think of each possible history of assemblies of moves is like a “creature” that eventually dies out or dominate and survive as winning strategies against other strategies they compete with at that particular moment in their evolution.

That paper here : https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2022/06/games-and-puzzles-as-multicomputational-systems/

Just to quote a kind of TLDR of that paper (since i don't expect people to actually read it, it can be a bit dense, but still interesting:

"We’ve now gone through many examples of games and puzzles. And in each case we’ve explored the multiway graphs that encapsulate the whole spectrum of their possible behavior. So what do we conclude? The most obvious point is that when games and puzzles seem to us difficult—and potentially “interesting”—it’s some kind of reflection of apparent complexity in the multiway graph. Or, put another way, it’s when we find the multiway graph somehow “difficult to decode” that we get a rich and engaging game or puzzle."

Cheers,

Yet again you ignored the fact this is a self made pvp. 

 

Not gonna repear myself so just gonna fast quote things.

 

"

The existence of builds operate in the same fashion. Builds abstractly exist in the space of possible builds that can exist from different assemblies of unique skills. The builds that are able to accomplish their goals, will be selected for and be played again. The ones that can not achieve some kind of meaningful goal will not be played and “die out” 
 

Balance is achieved by virtue of many things simply existing, their continued existence in the meta game being based of what goals they can achieve. Out there in the space of possibilities everything will find somewhere where they will be useful and this is the balance you would see in nature."

 

-Rock/paper/scissors game. My build exist cuz it counters your wich at the same time counters another one. You will see balance? Yes, if u wanna call that balance. But not a fun or interactive pvp.

 

"

Rock Paper Scissors is just one dynamic that arises but it is by far not the only kind of relationship. A Shark and a sucker fish depend on one another for their survival…tape worms depend on their hosts to continue their survival parasitically…and the list goes on in terms of how things tend to “find a way” to fit into the ecosystem of the dynamic setup by the environment."

 

They coexist because the possibilities of what surviving means vary a lot delending on the context. A pvp game has a defined winning contidion. You can have different ways to achieve that winning condition. But at the end your meta game would consist on a set of build wich counters others meta game to achieve that win condition. Again, rock paper scisorrs. Two types or sharks whom competes for the same food doesnt coexist.

 

" and ironically, Purity of Purpose as it was implemented 5 years ago was instated with the exact purpose of giving hard counters to each class in the form of Rock Paper Scissors. If you played a thief, you were bound to be a +1 Decap Bot and you were designed to always counter Necromancer…and if you play Necromancer your designed role was to play in the team fight and strip boons from support classes and get farmed by thieves. In other words you were designed without tools to adapt. They simply didn’t exist for your class and the game became defined by what class you decided to pick rather than what skills you could have picked or how well you played your skills"

 

This is simply not true and leads me to start believing your undestanding of how  pvp works its quite restricted. 

 

First of all thief doesnt "counter necro".  Thief role is to outnumber so if nec happens to be the target it will lead to thief killing necros but doesnt imply thief counter nec.   Nec  can addapt to getting plused by a lot of ways. The most common having map control on where thief is and using terrain advantage. Wich is indeed an skilled mechanic and only happens because there are already premade role wich leads a nec played to know how thief works and will move on the match.

Also, its not a me thief me decap. Wich is common within low tier players. Top tier thief playstyle implies a high knowledge of how the game works to achieve kills delending on the state of the match, while dealing w enemy thief strategy. This is only possible w an already maded roles. 

 

Not gonna detaik how different thief build and nec builds interact within its own roles cuz its very largue.

 

"With regards to Chess, Chess is one of these interestingly complex games like Go, that yield complex behavior based on simple rules and in fact there are games of chess that are played on infinite chess boards with infinite pieces (to within approximation obviously) which is a testament to how the possibility space" 

 

 

chess is a complex game cuz thise simply structures where self made to interact on a certain way to you could form a bigger struecture. If chess had millions of pieces w different moves there wouldnt be a playable game. The simplicity of those structures is wich mades a bigger game. As thief being a roamer sounds simplem but the peak gameplay if rotatins made it the most difficult class on the whole game.

 

 

The balance you claim its not what a competitive game is. Balance within nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by NotFound.7813

[NotFound.7813]

2 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

No it's not.

Look at the literal game of actual rock/paper/scissors IRL using your hands vs. someone else's hands.

This is far more simple than the bloated designs in GW2 as example, yet it is far more complex. In GW2 you already know the same rotations a Reaper is going to try to do to deal damage to you, but in simple rock/paper/scissors with your hands, you have no idea what the person is going to throw next.

Too easy that 90% of people playing this game dosnt know how to rotate w reaper

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

1 hour ago, NotFound.7813 said:

-Rock/paper/scissors game. My build exist cuz it counters your wich at the same time counters another one. You will see balance? Yes, if u wanna call that balance. But not a fun or interactive pvp.

 

They coexist because the possibilities of what surviving means vary a lot delending on the context. A pvp game has a defined winning contidion. You can have different ways to achieve that winning condition. But at the end your meta game would consist on a set of build wich counters others meta game to achieve that win condition. Again, rock paper scisorrs. Two types or sharks whom competes for the same food doesnt coexist.

 

This is simply not true and leads me to start believing your undestanding of how  pvp works its quite restricted. 

 

First of all thief doesnt "counter necro".  Thief role is to outnumber so if nec happens to be the target it will lead to thief killing necros but doesnt imply thief counter nec.   Nec  can addapt to getting plused by a lot of ways. The most common having map control on where thief is and using terrain advantage. Wich is indeed an skilled mechanic and only happens because there are already premade role wich leads a nec played to know how thief works and will move on the match.

Also, its not a me thief me decap. Wich is common within low tier players. Top tier thief playstyle implies a high knowledge of how the game works to achieve kills delending on the state of the match, while dealing w enemy thief strategy. This is only possible w an already maded roles. 

 

Not gonna detaik how different thief build and nec builds interact within its own roles cuz its very largue.

 

chess is a complex game cuz thise simply structures where self made to interact on a certain way to you could form a bigger struecture. If chess had millions of pieces w different moves there wouldnt be a playable game. The simplicity of those structures is wich mades a bigger game. As thief being a roamer sounds simplem but the peak gameplay if rotatins made it the most difficult class on the whole game.

 

The balance you claim its not what a competitive game is. Balance within nothing.

 

I'm not gonna argue with you. I'm kind of past the point of trying to about this subject...getting tired and old here I suppose...

 

But here's the thing...Complexity Diversity and homogeneity...those definitions aren't from guild wars 2...they are from these fields of science...so there is no debate here...you either accept it or you don't.

 

If chess had millions of pieces w different moves there wouldnt be a playable game. The simplicity of those structures is wich mades a bigger game. As thief being a roamer sounds simplem but the peak gameplay if rotatins made it the most difficult class on the whole game.

 

Anyway about this. Something that I think is misunderstood because i perhaps miss-explained something...is that what is being said when I'm talking about "more things existing" is not just about actual things existing, but about the amount of possibilities existing. It's confusing because one is a subset of the other, but not a description of both (having more actual things can lead to linear increase in possibilities (like adding 1 skill that does 1 thing and interacts with only itself increases the possibility space by only +1), but more possibilities is both more possibilities and more things exist as a result of those possibilities)

 

In other words, I'm not here saying we should add a million skills to the game...it is quiet the opposite...and this is the reason and purpose of the explanatory point of the post on the topic of complexity...you do not need a million skills with millions of functions to have a diverse and complex behavior in the game. The above is equivalent to having just a few skills with just a few functions that are equally capable of creating a complex and diverse behavior in the game. The scientist in that video explains this very clearly, that this is the kind of "secret nature has" for creating everything from practically nothing. It is just like the example i spoke about with the computer using 0's and 1's. Assemblies of just 0's and 1's makes it possible to describe every computer program that exists up to the size of the tape (memory) your computer has...including this game guild wars 2. What i am describing is that the skills in this game operate under the same form. We assemble skills, to create the builds, in the space of all possible builds that could be made from those skills. This is what it means for "more things to exist" not creating more and more skills, just more possibilities (which can be done by adding more skills, or simply making skills that already exist, being able to interact with other skills, and follow rules that create complicated behavior.)

Edited November 3, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[NotFound.7813]

12 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

I'm not gonna argue with you. I'm kind of past the point of trying to about this subject...getting tired and old here I suppose...

 

But here's the thing...Complexity Diversity and homogeneity...those definitions aren't from guild wars 2...they are from these fields of science...so there is no debate here...you either accept it or you don't.

 

If chess had millions of pieces w different moves there wouldnt be a playable game. The simplicity of those structures is wich mades a bigger game. As thief being a roamer sounds simplem but the peak gameplay if rotatins made it the most difficult class on the whole game.

 

Anyway about this. Something that I think is misunderstood because i perhaps miss-explained something...is that what is being said when I'm talking about "more things existing" is not just about actual things existing, but about the amount of possibilities existing. It's confusing because one is a subset of the other, but not a description of both (having more actual things can lead to linear increase in possibilities (like adding 1 skill that does 1 thing and interacts with only itself increases the possibility space by only +1), but more possibilities is both more possibilities and more things exist as a result of those possibilities)

 

In other words, I'm not here saying we should add a million skills to the game...it is quiet the opposite...and this is the reason and purpose of the explanatory point of the post on the topic of complexity...you do not need a million skills with millions of functions to have a diverse and complex behavior in the game. The above is equivalent to having just a few skills with just a few functions that are equally capable of creating a complex and diverse behavior in the game. The scientist in that video explains this very clearly, that this is the kind of "secret nature has" for creating everything from practically nothing. It is just like the example i spoke about with the computer using 0's and 1's. Assemblies of just 0's and 1's makes it possible to describe every computer program that exists up to the size of the tape (memory) your computer has...including this game guild wars 2. What i am describing is that the skills in this game operate under the same form. We assemble skills, to create the builds, in the space of all possible builds that could be made from those skills. This is what it means for "more things to exist" not creating more and more skills, just more possibilities (which can be done by adding more skills, or simply making skills that already exist, being able to interact with other skills, and follow rules that create complicated behavior.)

"Its science", i did agree you are true. Therefore its balanced. Balanced in a way its no longer a pvp game. Its nothing. Cuz youre so blind to undertand pvp games work with a predefined system.

 

You cant play overwatch without healer/tank/dps. You cant play LoL with three lines champion role. 

 

Specter and vindicator are a living example of what a class w no predefined role means. A do all class that completely kills pvp. Like old nade holosmith.

 

Sure yout perfect scheme would have a class that counters holo/vindo or specter. But that doesnt adreess any issue. Its balanced in a non competitive way.

 

Because the game is an abstract concept. Chess is an abstract concept. The movements of chess where conceived foŕ the game to be competitive . As thief where preconceived for working as a chess piece wich  could fit a certain role.

 

The diversity comes when within your role you can work on different ways.  Rev killed diversity cuz it was just a better all. Better than mesmer and better than thief. Cuz it wasnt a predefined class w certain trade offs like mesmer or thief.

 

Without no scheme you would have a balanced game, for sure. Not not a competitive game. 

 

 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

11 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

This is not what was said at all actually...that's the reason for the 10,000 word diatribe (and referenced links), is that this is not how you are supposed to interpret what was said. I guess either way I still failed to explain how this all works if this is what you took away from the posting.

 

the paraphrase "simplicity = complexity" is non-trivial...and the video I linked explains that clearly...that it is often mistaken that in order to make something complex means "having to put complexity into the game" and he says "this is not the case...you can do that with putting almost nothing into the game to get the same result."

 

I still think we agree at some level; the simple analogy here is as I mentioned, chess.  It has a simple framework for how pieces move, and complexity is inserted mostly through openers but other ways as well.  

The openers in chess are analogues to what most people would use as skill rotations in GW2, the difference here is it is not a 1 to 1 translation, as GW2 would be more akin to 3D chess.  It's not just the skills themselves that add complexity, but the terrain, node rotation mechanics, etc.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

21 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

I still think we agree at some level; the simple analogy here is as I mentioned, chess.  It has a simple framework for how pieces move, and complexity is inserted mostly through openers but other ways as well.  

The openers in chess are analogues to what most people would use as skill rotations in GW2, the difference here is it is not a 1 to 1 translation, as GW2 would be more akin to 3D chess.  It's not just the skills themselves that add complexity, but the terrain, node rotation mechanics, etc.

Yes, I think we are on the same page now. I said this in the OP but In a general sense the rules of the game includes practically everything…and generally speaking it’s just referred to as the ruleset of the game. 
 

of course the focus of the post is on the rule sets of skills rather than the ruleset of the game mode or the ruleset of individual players that follow their own sets of rules and logic systems. 
 

The space of the ruleset is called dimensionality, so for example, a skill that operates in 1 way with 1 thing has a dimension of just 1 possibility. Where as a skill that operates in 3 different ways with 10 things has 3^10 dimensions or possible ways the game could be played…and this grows beyond exponentially with every additional thing or set of things with their own dimension for the different ways it can behave. 
 

We notice this intuitively in pvp. Where the simple rules of the game in a near continuous space makes for an near infinite possible number of ways the game could be played and this is why it has persistent novelty, because of how large the possibility space is despite the only things “actually existing” is just three nodes operating on the simple rule that one merely needs to control the nodes more than the opposing team.

 

cheers,

Edited November 3, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@NotFound.7813

imagine the difference between these two scenarios:

1. Chess grandmaster plays an amateur on a normal Chess board. The grandmaster is able to beat the amateur while only losing a piece or two.
2. Chess grandmaster plays an amateur on an altered Chess board where they each have 1 King with all Queens instead of normal pieces. Every piece on the board is a Queen. This results in a situation where the grandmaster wins but rather than only losing a piece or two in the process, he will likely only have a piece or two left at the end of the game.

This is quite similar to what is happening with GW2 balance currently, after they decided to "make sure everything can do everything".

Arenanet needs to remember that sometimes less is more.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[NotFound.7813]

8 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@NotFound.7813

imagine the difference between these two scenarios:

1. Chess grandmaster plays an amateur on a normal Chess board. The grandmaster is able to beat the amateur while only losing a piece or two.
2. Chess grandmaster plays an amateur on an altered Chess board where they each have 1 King with all Queens instead of normal pieces. Every piece on the board is a Queen. This results in a situation where the grandmaster wins but rather than only losing a piece or two in the process, he will likely only have a piece or two left at the end of the game.

This is quite similar to what is happening with GW2 balance currently, after they decided to "make sure everything can do everything".

Arenanet needs to remember that sometimes less is more.

i agree

 

[Bazsi.2734]

I thought I liked reading. Apparently I don't.

[Ragnar.4257]

"Words can only have one definition and always mean exactly the same thing regardless of context"

/r/iamverysmart

Edited November 3, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[Sereath.1428]

18 hours ago, NotFound.7813 said:

Your definition of what balance is its just delusional. 

 

For sure that if you desing a kittenton of random skills/builds there will end up being a balanced win/lose ratios between classes. 

 

But thats no near of what a competitive game is meant to be. Without a scheme of how you want your classes to interact with each other theres no strategy involved, any skill or mechanic therefore any kind of fun. 

 

For example, applying your way lf thinking necrl shouldnt be designed as it is, a teamfighter oriented claas w certain trade offs. You can give necro blocks, freely ports or whatever. Make it a great sidenoder. Why not? In my eternal list of builds there will be anything that kills necro. Therefore its balanced.  But thats no near a healthy pvp enviroment. First cuz it implies the existence of rock/paper/scissor type of gameplay.  And second cuz it kills any mental scheme players form in order to create a strategy game.

 

 

Overwatch, LoL, Dota all has a predefined scheme of interactions so players can process thats happening and form strategies and skillful gameplay.

 

Chess pieces arent balanced when it comes of your way of thinking. To make chess a balanced game you would need to add a long list of new moves/pieces that would make queen not a top piece. But that wouldnt make chess bettee. Cuz there wouldnt be any scheme to follow or chess wouldnt be simply too difficult for human brain to be played.

>Competitive game
>Overwatch, LoL, Dota all has a predefined scheme of interactions

Brother/sister...
This is an MMO

It's just impossible to achieve that level of "balance" you think of when mentioning those games, without homogenizing classes to death.
That's actually delusional.

What about you people start comparing this MMO with other MMOs instead?
 

I cant wait for the time they remove all the amulets and runes from PvP except for Zerk and Divinity runes. 😀
 

Great topic btw @JusticeRetroHunter.7684

Edited November 3, 2022 by XxsdgxX.8109

[NotFound.7813]

2 hours ago, XxsdgxX.8109 said:

>Competitive game
>Overwatch, LoL, Dota all has a predefined scheme of interactions

Brother/sister...
This is an MMO

It's just impossible to achieve that level of "balance" you think of when mentioning those games, without homogenizing classes to death.
That's actually delusional.

What about you people start comparing this MMO with other MMOs instead?
 

I cant wait for the time they remove all the amulets and runes from PvP except for Zerk and Divinity runes. 😀
 

Great topic btw @JusticeRetroHunter.7684

Balance isnt about having all classes specs being good at the same time lmao. its about rotation the meta by buffing debuffing and making traits/rebuild skills that are actually interactive. When you dont follow any logic scheme you end creating classes like specter that will end ruinnig the pvp w 3 specter team comps, or vindi or whatever the broken class it is cuz it can do everything everywhere.

 

 

nobody talked about homogenizing nothing or debuffing all classes you are just trippin out of nowwhere my guy.

 

its an MMO but within its stanced pvp variant. no other mmo has a equivalent competitive  game mode .  Overwatch is a shooter yet follows a completely different scheme. idk why u stcik gw2 w other mmos when its pvp doesnt have anything on common. maybe the delusional one here r u my brother in christ.