Changes that completely change the meta should happen only during xpac releases

[Einsof.1457]

The cadence of complete balance reworks through gw2's history is completely bonkers. It's okay to change some values and stuff here and there, but complete reworks should only be reserved for big events such as expansion releases or at the VERY most once every two years. Not every quarter. This fly-by-ear approach should stop. It screams incompetence.  It's really lame that we have to completely relearn our rotations, roles, and mechanics every few months. No other MMO does this or should do this. 

 

Edit: since most seem to be okay with huge changes every quarter, what interval would be too narrow for you personally? One month? Two weeks? How often would you enjoy mastering your rotation, tooltips, etc. every time?

Edited November 21, 2022 by Einsof.1457

[disco.9302]

keep things stale and do huge changes every 2 years?

no thanks!

[Einsof.1457]

1 hour ago, disco.9302 said:

keep things stale and do huge changes every 2 years?

no thanks!

You missed the point completely. The argument for these sweeping changes so frequently isn't due to staleness. It's due to imbalance per arenanet. Let's focus on reality please. 

[Astralporing.1957]

12 hours ago, Einsof.1457 said:

Edit: since most seem to be okay with huge changes every quarter, what interval would be too narrow for you personally? One month? Two weeks? How often would you enjoy mastering your rotation, tooltips, etc. every time?

I think you are approaching the question from the wrong direction. It's not that people want big changes very often. Changes for changes' sake are pointless. It's that people want the game to be balanced as fast as possible. And if big changes are necessary for that, better to have them right away, rather than string them out over a long duration.

Basically, if there is an imbalance, it needs to be fixed. Now, not when the next expac hits (and when new especs will arrive, imbalancin the freshly balanced game once again). A game that balances the previous expac only when next expac hits will be doomed to always be massively imbalanced.

[Hashberry.4510]

Stop chasing the meta dude. 

[Einsof.1457]

42 minutes ago, Hashberry.4510 said:

Stop chasing the meta dude. 

That's what I'm trying to tell anet in this thread. 

[Doggie.3184]

Or it'd just be nice for everything to stay useful and fun. Sad when you put a lotta work into a legendary weapon or buy an expensive skin for example and then the weapon gets redesigned into something useless and/or unfun and left to rot for years.

Like how they deleted all the traits that made Dual Pistols fun on Thief; like Ricochet. >:O Such drasticness is obsurd.

Deadeye being terrible and beaten to death over n over left me with a leggy Rifle I hadn't used in years till Engi redesign happaned, which that may end up getting murdered too.

Deadeye is even being made worse-er soon~ killed while already dead. ;o

Edited November 21, 2022 by Doggie.3184

[Vyr.9387]

17 minutes ago, Doggie.3184 said:

Or it'd just be nice for everything to stay useful and fun. Sad when you put a lotta work into a legendary weapon or buy an expensive skin for example and then the weapon gets redesigned into something useless and/or unfun and left to rot for years.

Like how they deleted all the traits that made Dual Pistols fun on Thief; like Ricochet. >:O Such drasticness is obsurd.

Deadeye being terrible and beaten to death over n over left me with a leggy Rifle I hadn't used in years till Engi redesign happaned, which that may end up getting murdered too.

Deadeye is even being made worse-er soon~ killed while already dead. ;o

Doubts gently enter,
nudge to question everything.
Reroll the SKEPTER.

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

It's that people want the game to be balanced as fast as possible. And if big changes are necessary for that, better to have them right away, rather than string them out over a long duration.

Basically, if there is an imbalance, it needs to be fixed. Now, not when the next expac hits

Yup, pretty much this. The idea that big balance changes should only happen on expansion release every x years for some reason doesn't make sense to me.

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

1 hour ago, Doggie.3184 said:

Or it'd just be nice for everything to stay useful and fun. Sad when you put a lotta work into a legendary weapon or buy an expensive skin for example and then the weapon gets redesigned into something useless and/or unfun and left to rot for years.

Like how they deleted all the traits that made Dual Pistols fun on Thief; like Ricochet. >:O Such drasticness is obsurd.

Deadeye being terrible and beaten to death over n over left me with a leggy Rifle I hadn't used in years till Engi redesign happaned, which that may end up getting murdered too.

Deadeye is even being made worse-er soon~ killed while already dead. ;o

Yeah, massive +1 to this.  With an additional point that this is particularly brutal on ranged weapons because they aren't well distributed (Rifle, Shortbow and Longbow have the three lowest classes per weapon in the game).

 

Mechanist is a perfect example of this at the moment.  I love playing Mech because of the mobility that it brings with it, but I am really hesitant to invest in it because the possibility of a nerf totally wrecking it is constantly overhead.

 

I do want regular balance patches, because the game does need them.  But the fact that they can render a legendary weapon basically useless is a genuine issue that does put me off going for ones of that type.

 

My solution is for the devs to go back in time and give Catalyst a bow rather than a hammer 🙂

 

Actually on a more serious note, while I do realise it is a lot of work, doing a sweep of handing a bow or rifle to every class would be nice - ideally as a Core update.  The rifle Mechanist popularity isn't just because it's LI, but also because ranged play is a lot more fun for a lot of people than the usual "Stand in particle cloud on the boss" gameplay (and yes, I know there are some ranged options for e.g. axe and dagger).

[Obtena.7952]

17 hours ago, Einsof.1457 said:

You missed the point completely. The argument for these sweeping changes so frequently isn't due to staleness. It's due to imbalance per arenanet. Let's focus on reality please. 

So ... you advocate long periods of static imbalance for the game then? Pretty sure the vast majority of players would be speaking with wallets on this one.  Your suggestion completely ignores the fact that Anet making improvements to gameplay is part of a successful business model here. 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Bladestrom.6425]

20 hours ago, Einsof.1457 said:

The cadence of complete balance reworks through gw2's history is completely bonkers. It's okay to change some values and stuff here and there, but complete reworks should only be reserved for big events such as expansion releases or at the VERY most once every two years. Not every quarter. This fly-by-ear approach should stop. It screams incompetence.  It's really lame that we have to completely relearn our rotations, roles, and mechanics every few months. No other MMO does this or should do this. 

 

Edit: since most seem to be okay with huge changes every quarter, what interval would be too narrow for you personally? One month? Two weeks? How often would you enjoy mastering your rotation, tooltips, etc. every time?

 

Its quite the opposite of incompetence, mature software houses drive for a fast cadence with their releases.  From a game players point if view, we want development and release of balance changes to be responsive.  Rotations and being on 'meta' impacts perhaps 2-3% of the content in game, you can happily be off meta in the other 97% ands still have fun.  

[Mungo Zen.9364]

Meta changes on a regular 2/3/4/6 month cycle would be fine if the game was balanced to begin with.
 

But GW2 is far from balanced and these changes we’ve been facing are far more about an understaffed and under prepared team trying to rebalance the game without having a clear design goal for what that balance looks like. 
 

Unfortunately the changes they have been making have ruined multiple play styles in favor of homogenized garbage that really works for some specs and really doesn’t for others.  

[Sobx.1758]

10 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

The rifle Mechanist popularity isn't just because it's LI, but also because ranged play is a lot more fun

Not really -the popularity of mech isn't exactly "because it's so fun", but instead because it's so laughably easy and low-effort (or low-input) while still being efficient. Having 1200 range, AA chain (or perhaps the usual stronger final AA attack) rolled into one attack you don't really interrupt by pressing whatever else once in a while, hard cc, soft cc and mobility all within one weapon (on top of a 3 autocast skills of the mech that also supports your AA damage with its AA and a rather low cd shadowstep/stunbreak/condiclear/mech reposition tool) sure does contribute to that. It's overloaded, as safe as it gets and efficient for next to no input. That's what mechanist is. 🤷‍♂️

11 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

than the usual "Stand in particle cloud on the boss" gameplay

It really still does that where it matters if only due to boon/heal ranges, so not sure about what you've just said.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[CrashTestAuto.9108]

6 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Not really -the popularity of mech isn't exactly "because it's so fun", but instead because it's so laughably easy and low-effort (or low-input) while still being efficient. Having 1200 range, AA chain (or perhaps the usual stronger final AA attack) rolled into one attack you don't really interrupt by pressing whatever else once in a while, hard cc, soft cc and mobility all within one weapon (on top of a 3 autocast skills of the mech that also supports your AA damage with its AA and a rather low cd shadowstep/stunbreak/condiclear/mech reposition tool) sure does contribute to that. It's overloaded, as safe as it gets and efficient for next to no input. That's what mechanist is. 🤷‍♂️

It really still does that where it matters if only due to boon/heal ranges, so not sure about what you've just said.

This is the stereotype I hear a lot, but not what people who actually play the class I've spoken to tend to say.  Yes, Mechanist is easier in terms of inputs (which is also good, because for many people complex rotations simply aren't fun, difficult or otherwise).  However, pretty much everyone I've spoken to (and myself included) likes the feel of the class.  There have been people expressing concerns about the change to auto-attack animation for this reason, even though mechanically it is exactly the same.

 

Sure some people will play the easiest thing, but there are plenty of LI builds across classes.  Mechanist is the one that took off, and for a reason.

 

Regardless.  It doesn't matter whether people like Mech because it is easy, or because it's fun.  The risk of a big nerf to it is all that is required to make the point related to this thread.  Rifle is incredibly popular right now, but only on a specific elite spec of a specific class (and there are very few alternative options for it).  The risk of a nerf to rifle Mech therefore makes going for a legendary rifle a risky proposition, which is not fun.

 

Note that my solution here was to distribute the ranged weapons more, not to protect Mechanist at all costs (though I think they should do both).

[Sobx.1758]

2 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

This is the stereotype I hear a lot, but not what people who actually play the class I've spoken to tend to say.  Yes, Mechanist is easier in terms of inputs (which is also good, because for many people complex rotations simply aren't fun, difficult or otherwise).  However, pretty much everyone I've spoken to (and myself included) likes the feel of the class.  There have been people expressing concerns about the change to auto-attack animation for this reason, even though mechanically it is exactly the same.

This is not a stereotype, this is a fact. Simply "long ranged" options already existed for a long time -and still do- but somehow they weren't as popular (""fun""?) and that's because those options weren't/aren't as overloaded/low input as mech is.

2 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

Sure some people will play the easiest thing, but there are plenty of LI builds across classes.  Mechanist is the one that took off, and for a reason.

Plenty of LI builds, which still get trampled by mechanist due to what I pointed out in the previous post, right? Of course it's "for a reason". Those reasons are what was already described above. What excatly do you think is false about it and why?

2 hours ago, CrashTestAuto.9108 said:

Regardless.  It doesn't matter whether people like Mech because it is easy, or because it's fun.  The risk of a big nerf to it is all that is required to make the point related to this thread.  Rifle is incredibly popular right now, but only on a specific elite spec of a specific class (and there are very few alternative options for it).  The risk of a nerf to rifle Mech therefore makes going for a legendary rifle a risky proposition, which is not fun.

I'm not sure why you think you somehow need to go for a legendary weapon to play the class in the first place. That's not even close to being true, slap a berserker asc rifle on it and you're done without a huge investment. I don't get the approach you're taking here.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Sahne.6950]

did this guy really just suggest... that they should only change things... with xpacs.... 

 

Literally 3 balancepatches since 2012....   GREAT IDEA. /s

Edited November 22, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[draxynnic.3719]

I'm reminded of a discussion I had recently with someone regarding legendary rifles.

 

Person: "...and then I'll have no excuse not to get a legendary rifle."

Me: "I can give you one. Outside of deadeye Qadim kiting, you pretty much only use it on one profession anyway, so you can just use an ascended rifle."

Third-party observer: "He's not wrong."

Me: "Plus, even if rifle warrior or deadeye start being widely used, they're all power weapons anyway so you can probably get away with just having one berserker's ascended rifle that you swap between characters until and unless a new elite specialisation that uses rifle for something else comes along."

Third-party observer: "You know...he's not wrong."

[The Boz.2038]

4 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I'm reminded of a discussion I had recently with someone regarding legendary rifles.

 

Person: "...and then I'll have no excuse not to get a legendary rifle."

Me: "I can give you one. Outside of deadeye Qadim kiting, you pretty much only use it on one profession anyway, so you can just use an ascended rifle."

Third-party observer: "He's not wrong."

Me: "Plus, even if rifle warrior or deadeye start being widely used, they're all power weapons anyway so you can probably get away with just having one berserker's ascended rifle that you swap between characters until and unless a new elite specialisation that uses rifle for something else comes along."

Third-party observer: "You know...he's not wrong."

If that's your main motivation for legendary stuff... then they're never worth it. A legendary weapon is *fifty* times more expensive than an ascended.

Armor a mere *ten* times.

(Sigils and runes are never worth it, though, they are just entirely rubbish)

[draxynnic.3719]

29 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

If that's your main motivation for legendary stuff... then they're never worth it. A legendary weapon is *fifty* times more expensive than an ascended.

Armor a mere *ten* times.

(Sigils and runes are never worth it, though, they are just entirely rubbish)

Eh. There's a convenience factor in play when it's a weapon that gets used across multiple professions, especially if some of those professions are also likely to use it in builds that use different stats and sigils and you factor in the inventory space. But when it's used by three professions and they all use basically the same configuration (deadeye uses impact and riflemech uses air, but do they really make that much difference)? That convenience factor becomes a lot less significant.

(I'd also note that even on a purely resource-oriented viewpoint... armour becomes worth it very quickly. Ten times means you don't need all that many builds across that weight for it to become worth it, especially since you can swap runes and infusions freely with legendary.)

Edited November 22, 2022 by draxynnic.3719

[Dadnir.5038]

The various metas need to be everchanging in order to have a playerbase interested in the game. If the meta only changed every 3 to 5 years you'd have nobody willing to play both competitive mode and end game pretty quickly.

[Cuks.8241]

Meta shift is basically new content. So decently fast cadence please. 

Also balance will never be achieved. Even if objectively the game would be balanced, the players would never see it as balanced. You have quite large set of players in every game that constantly yells for balance and each of them have their own perspective on it. Meta shifts ensure different classes and build get their spotlight.

besides this game's pve is relatively easy and checks are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay below the ceiling. Unless you are playing for some CM speed clears it doesnt really matter, your build, if somewhat coherent, can do the job. And its similar in pvp. Unless youre playing for MATs or really high ranks you should be more focused on having a build that suits you and you can develop good muscle memory for it. This will take you much higher than some meta focus.