Implementing idiotic changes only to revert them years later

[Terrorhuz.4695]

Gw2 is free to play. Devs don't pay their rent when I play the game, devs pay their rent when I buy some candy from the store.
As a customer, I understand that. Buying things is my end of the bargain. But this is a live support product, the game I experience may change from one day to another. For this reason, when I buy something, I establish a bond of trust with the developers: I'm giving you real money today, you promise not to break my fun tomorrow, and it gets fixed if that were to happen.

I look at mesmer and see designers changing some random stuff, breaking it and then reverting those changes months or years later; everything works out in the end, all's well that ends well, but nobody stopped a bad decision from happening and you had to suck it up for years. We've seen that with mantras, chrono shatters, chrono distortion, mirage dodge just to name a few. Well of Action and Well of Senility are the next in line for borked things on which devs are throwing random stuff waiting for something to happen, but these skills have been reworked only 8 months ago and it'll take a few more years before a designer gets an actual idea about them.

And when it's not a designer breaking things intentionally, it's some random intern breaking them unintentionally. If that happened, support won't even tell you if it's intended behavior (Arcane Thievery now requires target facing but won't turn towards the the target; Mirage Thrust and Blade Leap never hit; Mirror Blade goes on full cd without casting if people walk inside your hitbox; Unstable Bladestorm disappears altogether when blocked; Mirror Blade won't bounce on its own clone anymore, all wells can be redirected mid-cast with instant targeting + allow skill retargeting, but Well of Calamity won't allow it. Is it intended or not? All it takes is to literally see who committed what and message the author on Teams, it's not rocket science). At the end of the day, I want to give GW2 a chance to get my money, and every time some developer makes sure to throw in there a new reason not to do so.

I want to pay the bills to some dev. I really do. Especially the artists, I love the artists in this game. But cash requires trust, and regularly introducing breaking, unfun changes -and leaving them there for much longer than what would be acceptable- just won't get trust. We reached a point where literally every pvp game would have several people crashing -hotfix material if I've ever seen one-, then @Josh Davis.7865 goes on Reddit saying "oh yeah we have a fix for this game-breaking issue, it's totally ready by now AND WE'LL RELEASE IN A WEEK". What the kitten?!? I'm literally searching for an excuse to throw my money at some game, I log in GW2 as it self-destructs under my own eyes and even THAT doesn't warrant a quick response?

TLDR: why tf would I want to pay for a game that regularly introduces unfun mechanics\bugs with a life expectancy higher than that of some animals?

Edited February 23, 2023 by Terrorhuz.4695

[solemn.9670]

This is the best post I've read anywhere on these forums for a long time lmao

[ascii.1369]

I mean... I disagree with some of the details, but whatever. The general issue 100% YES. No clue why everything takes ages at ANet. I work in software development myself, game devs are genuinely the only devs who can just ignore bugs and broken features. Who cares if the product isn't working, we'll fix it in a year or two.

[Salt Mode.3780]

Another thing you forgot to mention, for example, this Mantra fiasco. They had nerfed mantras when they decided to make them without needing cast time, now that they reverted it back to it having a cast time they never reverted the nerfs they did to it so now its super lack-luster. All the talented devs from years past are long gone and we are stuck with the extras. 

[ylinky.5064]

7 hours ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Another thing you forgot to mention, for example, this Mantra fiasco. They had nerfed mantras when they decided to make them without needing cast time, now that they reverted it back to it having a cast time they never reverted the nerfs they did to it so now its super lack-luster. All the talented devs from years past are long gone and we are stuck with the extras. 

Quote

Mantras (Mesmer and Firebrand)

... , creating an incentive to not use the final charge. This is a poor user experience and something we have hoped for a long time to be able to come back and address.

Needing to prepare for combat by using a sequence of skills with a long casting time is not fun, and in most cases, using the final charge of a mantra in combat felt like a mistake. It not only denied your use of the skill for a long time, but it also required you to prepare your mantras again after the cooldown expired. Instead of being rewarding to use, mantras have been a chore...

What they said when they change it to no cast time.

I feel "extras" are giving me the middle finger lol

Looks like they want us to not having fun.

[Terrorhuz.4695]

On 2/23/2023 at 12:30 AM, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Another thing you forgot to mention, for example, this Mantra fiasco. They had nerfed mantras when they decided to make them without needing cast time, now that they reverted it back to it having a cast time they never reverted the nerfs they did to it so now its super lack-luster. All the talented devs from years past are long gone and we are stuck with the extras. 

I don't even care about nerfs or buffs,  most of these are literally one-line changes with no regression risk as it's just about finding the right number.

The problem here is

1) Designers coming up with stuff which is dumb regardless of numbers ("We designed mesmer weapons to have no damage, so users will be forced to shatter. Big idea for the elite spec: WE REMOVE THOSE SHATTERS TOO!"; some designer before reworking chrono shatters, early 2019). You can fix fun mechanics with numbers, you can't fix unfun mechanics with numbers.
2) Interns breaking stuff around while implementing the dumb choices listed at point 1. Add to that the PR team not even having the decency of sharing anywhere a list of known issues, so that me, a random idiot, can have some peace of mind knowing that a given behavior will probably be fixed in the generic future.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Terrorhuz.4695

[ascii.1369]

13 hours ago, ylinky.5064 said:

Needing to prepare for combat by using a sequence of skills with a long casting time is not fun, and in most cases, using the final charge of a mantra in combat felt like a mistake. It not only denied your use of the skill for a long time, but it also required you to prepare your mantras again after the cooldown expired. Instead of being rewarding to use, mantras have been a chore...

Unfortunately all of this is still true. No idea why they thought it would be fun to play now...

 

9 hours ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

"We designed mesmer weapons to have no damage, so users will be forced to shatter. Big idea for the elite spec: WE REMOVE THOSE SHATTERS TOO!"; some designer before reworking chrono shatters, early 2019

Yeah, that's one of these things I don't get anyway. For a long time now Mesmer has had the issue of always being one buff away from oneshotting people from stealth again. That's part of why we can't have nice things, because every insta cast skill and every little power damge buff imediately tips us over the edge again. Why are they not making Mesmer less bursty by shifting damage from shatters to weapons and come up with a better way to make people shatter.

Edited February 23, 2023 by ascii.1369

[viquing.8254]

1 hour ago, ascii.1369 said:

Unfortunately all of this is still true. No idea why they thought it would be fun to play now...

I sign for this in 2012, I understand people don't like the change but I'm glad it's back to the core concept.

 

The worst thing about mantra was and is FB...

Edited February 23, 2023 by viquing.8254

[AshkyLicious.4729]

100% great post! You summed it up so good, and I think most of us mesmer mainers can agree with this!

[apharma.3741]

11 hours ago, viquing.8254 said:

I sign for this in 2012, I understand people don't like the change but I'm glad it's back to the core concept.

 

The worst thing about mantra was and is FB...

Yeah I agree with this. What a lot of people are overlooking is that mantra recharge times when they got rid of the charge mechanic were abysmal and those weren't really changed after. Distraction is a great example, 24s count recharge, which meant you could use 3 in a 24s period. With the recharge (assuming you enter combat with it charged) you can get 4 uses and you'll have taken 10s off diversion's cool down. It's more than doubled the interrupt capability of mesmer just by being able to charge it in combat if you know how. Not only that but it ensures you start most fights with mantras in the state you want, fully charged or not.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mantra_of_Recovery
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mantra_of_Concentration
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mantra_of_Distraction
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mantra_of_Pain
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mantra_of_Resolve

[Gendalfs.7521]

What a great post.

Those dicisions made by some makes no sense. And no sense comes when theres no clue.

I have made my virtuoso quite recently so i cant echo those problems, but man it surely reflects what they did to Power ranged mechanic and rifle (they made problems out of thin air).

Sorry I know this is not engie forum.

p.s. this skill back and forth juggling seems like work imitation and thats even worse than doing nothing.

[Curunen.8729]

This is by far my biggest issue with balance changes over the years.

Sure experimentation is good, but not when it takes another 6, 12, 24, 72 months to go back and forth.

The amount of changes for the sake of changes and apparently directionless, cyclic balancing is quite demoralising, especially when things make absolutely no sense thematically or for gameplay.

Can't say more than you've already put in the OP.

[Gesbo.6420]

maybe while they are on the reverting weird changes they can look into reverting Bountiful Disillusionment to splash boons to allies again, so we can have some support presence again. I have high hopes for the next patch but I feel like I might be severely dissapointed.

[ascii.1369]

16 hours ago, Gesbo.6420 said:

I have high hopes for the next patch but I feel like I might be severely dissapointed.

I had high hopes for every patch since they announced the second dodge for mirage would be coming back 🙃

[Terrorhuz.4695]

21 hours ago, ascii.1369 said:

I had high hopes for every patch since they announced the second dodge for mirage would be coming back 🙃

I had hopes for a long time, then I logged after the last balance patch. All the good changes came from restoring old behaviors (glamours, mantras), the only new change was the new Master of Manipulation; the reworked trait was so "good" I endured 2 matches and straight up uninstalled the game.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Terrorhuz.4695

[NICENIKESHOE.7128]

All I can say is......most of my patients would probably be dead if I worked at ANet's pace.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

This reads like the agony suffered waiting for Anet to fix power warrior/zerker, which only had the problems surrounding it given attention after they pushed a banner patch so outstandingly weird that it upset most people that even had cursory knowledge of how warrior does (and should) function and united even non warrior mains under the "yeah what are you doing?" sentiment. 

That vibe is familiar, hopefully it doesn't take a catastrophic blunder for the balance team to address some of these pertinent things. Mind you, years of waiting with no telegraphing "hey we're trying to fix this and want to understand why it's a problem" is already pretty bad.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261
I'm taking over the mesmer forums, move over

[Terrorhuz.4695]

On 5/19/2023 at 5:25 PM, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

This reads like the agony suffered waiting for Anet to fix power warrior/zerker, which only had the problems surrounding it given attention after they pushed a banner patch so outstandingly weird that it upset most people that even had cursory knowledge of how warrior does (and should) function and united even non warrior mains under the "yeah what are you doing?" sentiment. 

That vibe is familiar, hopefully it doesn't take a catastrophic blunder for the balance team to address some of these pertinent things. Mind you, years of waiting with no telegraphing "hey we're trying to fix this and want to understand why it's a problem" is already pretty bad.

I don't even know what YOU are doing here, of all people, but I appreciate your post, I really mean that. And your berserker example is straight to the point (the mechanics on berserker now are fun tho, I'll give that at the very least. Not very effective, but fun)

Edited May 25, 2023 by Terrorhuz.4695

[Veprovina.4876]

On 5/19/2023 at 5:25 PM, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

that it upset most people that even had cursory knowledge of how warrior does (and should) function and united even non warrior mains under the "yeah what are you doing?"

That's the difference.

When ele got nerfed, the whole reddit was up in arms, memes everywhere, outrage.

When warrior got the nerf, the whole community was "wtf are you doing" just like you said.

Every time Mesmer gets the nerf the whole community says "yeah they deserve it", youtubers that cover patches say "yeah, justified, mesmers were too OP, they had it coming" and such.

[Helgaley.3619]

On 2/14/2023 at 2:08 PM, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

 want to pay the bills to some dev. I really do. Especially the artists, I love the artists in this game. But cash requires trust, and regularly introducing breaking, unfun changes -and leaving them there for much longer than what would be acceptable- just won't get trust. We reached a point where literally every pvp game would have several people crashing -hotfix material if I've ever seen one-, then @Josh Davis.7865 goes on Reddit saying "oh yeah we have a fix for this game-breaking issue, it's totally ready by now AND WE'LL RELEASE IN A WEEK". What the kitten?!? I'm literally searching for an excuse to throw my money at some game, I log in GW2 as it self-destructs under my own eyes and even THAT doesn't warrant a quick response?

TLDR: why tf would I want to pay for a game that regularly introduces unfun mechanics\bugs with a life expectancy higher than that of some animals?

It's almost fascinating how consistently awful they are with addressing these issues. It's almost been a year since those Discord chats leaked online, and I remember reading about that developer flat out admitting to making balance decisions based on his own personal preferences and what he enjoys playing. I thought for sure that would prompt some changes to the dev team and ultimately result in better balance and design decisions, but it has not. The fact he was even comfortable saying that in a Discord chat that could be shared with virtually anybody, and was, makes me wonder if he was saying the quiet part out loud, and making balance and design decisions based on personal preference is just the norm with the dev team. 

Make a few tweaks here and there, communicate more often, and just make it seem like they are trying harder, but are they really? If they are making decisions based on what they enjoy, why would they act with any sense of urgency to fix things that don't negatively impact the professions and game modes they enjoy playing? So, we buy the game and fund it with purchases from the candy shop with the expectation that the developers will continue to make the game fun for us, but then we have a developer admitting to making changes based on what he thinks is fun, and it just doesn't seem like much has fundamentally changed since then. 

[Anela.3867]

On 2/27/2023 at 11:59 AM, ascii.1369 said:

I had high hopes for every patch since they announced the second dodge for mirage would be coming back 🙃

Please bring our second dodge back /beg

[ventress.4879]

Most other professions hate to play against Mesmers so this the source of most of the weird nerfs. 

Edited June 6, 2023 by ventress.4879

[Leonidrex.5649]

My favourite was taking away mirage dodge to beta-test vindicator, but having 1 dodge is so fundamentally stupid they reverted it even for a spec that had 1 dodge from the ground up, yet here we are omegalul.
Wake me up when mirage has its dodges back

[Xenesis.6389]

On 5/29/2023 at 6:03 AM, Anela.3867 said:

Please bring our second dodge back /beg

Don't beg for it, demand it. They fixed Vindicator it's way past the time they fixed Mirage.

[Salt Mode.3780]

1 hour ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Don't beg for it, demand it. They fixed Vindicator it's way past the time they fixed Mirage.

since when did demand for anything related to mesmer ever pans out...