The beginning of the end

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Good job on almost fully homogenizing the game's combat.

You have, at long last, introduced the KEY boons to all specs. 

You are either Quickness or Alacrity. That's it, no other utility, no unique skills, no real incentive to play a class over the other. Does Quicknesss Zerker work better than Quickness Chrono? If so, you should play the Chrono for it's unique skills right? Too bad there ain't NONE.

You stripped the last unique thing from especs and added it into core specs and elites. 

What's next? 

As a warrior I'd like to see you add Full COunter, Berserk Mode and Dragon Trigger all in 1 bar. 

It is about time we remove the traitlines and make every class an amalgamation of its parts.

No need for unique skills, no need for interesting counterplay like boon removal. 

I am a doomer I suppose. Enjoy this terrible game you have created. I know I haven't been for months and I am sad that I still feel a connection to it that makes me write such a paragraph. Agree or disagree, it's ok, what matters is not the enjoyment of combat, but the pleasure of total victory. 

[SlayerXX.7138]

What is the big deal? Nothing is unique about seeing the same quickness provider in every group. Does my thief providing quickness change the buttons on other classes somehow?

You really want to go back to firebrands War 2?

Edited June 27, 2023 by SlayerXX.7138

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Just now, SlayerXX.7138 said:

What is the big deal? Nothing is unique about seeing the same quickness provider in every group.

Hmmmm idk, maybe the fact that the game at it's conception was meant to be played in such a way where each class had enough tools at it's disposal to perform a certain number of tasks (which were shared globally) and now we have reached a point where Yellow class does the same thing as Red and Blue and Green and it feels stale?

Perhaps the next step is to introduce spec-locked utilities to core. That would make for a fun change. It would certainly make me feel like playing more! /s

What happened to especs exploring unique themes and roles that the class may have been weak in?

I guess that's gone now!

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

I've no opinion on quickness atm, but I think alacrity should be removed all together.

Instead each profession should have it's own cooldown reducing/resetting mechanics where appropriate based on player skill and profession's own flavor. So everyone would be their own alacrity provider if they play it right and ofc with the amount of such opportunities tailored to each profession's (and specialization's) needs.

Edited June 27, 2023 by ZeftheWicked.3076

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Just now, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

I've no opinion on quickness atm, but I think alacrity should be removed all together.

Instead each profession should have it's own cooldown reducing/resetting mechanics where appropriate based on player skill and profession's own flavor.

FLAVOR????? There is as much flavor in the game right now as Joko's mighty corpse!

[Suyheuti.1732]

1 minute ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

I've no opinion on quickness atm, but I think alacrity should be removed all together.

Instead each profession should have it's own cooldown reducing/resetting mechanics where appropriate based on player skill and profession's own flavor.

Not only alac, quickness is OP boon too. Removal will be extreme but these two boons should have been only self generated boons, not group sharing. They should have entegrated to weapon skills like holosmith’s sw3.  

[Myror.7521]

@Grand Marshal.4098 i mean thats what they said at the Games launch and thats how the Game was meant to be. Every class could do everything still some could do other stuff better than others but yea you get it xd

[GetFoxxed.9478]

Being able to use all weapons is good. Looking forward to staff on specter and 2 swords on reaper.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Just now, Myror.7521 said:

@Grand Marshal.4098 i mean thats what they said at the Games launch and thats how the Game was meant to be. Every class could do everything still some could do other stuff better than others but yea you get it xd

I mean the idea of every class being capable at healing, dealing damage and providing boons for offensive or defensive purposes, is what they were promising with their manifesto. Undoing the classic trinity.

But then there was also an issue of class identity. Some classes would inadvertedly possess some unique tool over the others. Would that make them necessarily overpowered if they were balanced at their role and perhaps an Espec for another class introduced a similar theme for variety and class composition health?

Best example would be Mesmer and Necro sharing the boonrip and corrupt assets since core. A similar job, but with different taste. Spellbreaker introducing such a concept to a class with wildly different playstyle and means of applying these effects.

That was the epitome of class character and role. A long-gone dream, sacrificed in favor of boons and versatility "I wan't my warrior to do alac, I want my necro to also do quickness, I want my Rev to play that thing, cause I don't want to learn DH to do it" etc. 

Catering to more casual players can be done without obliterating the game's combat for those who enjoyed it.

[Myror.7521]

@Grand Marshal.4098 or to players that just simply find 1 class funny to play. Srsly i do not see the problem yet with all classes been able to share alac and quickness. Cause this 2 boons are the thing you need in every team comb. The other boons and stuff still let the classes stay their identity at all. Also a side this all classes still get diffenrent playstyles and stuff ^^ for real the only real different is just 2 boons are could be now shared by everyone ^^

[Grand Marshal.4098]

6 minutes ago, Myror.7521 said:

@Grand Marshal.4098 or to players that just simply find 1 class funny to play. Srsly i do not see the problem yet with all classes been able to share alac and quickness. Cause this 2 boons are the thing you need in every team comb. The other boons and stuff still let the classes stay their identity at all. Also a side this all classes still get diffenrent playstyles and stuff ^^ for real the only real different is just 2 boons are could be now shared by everyone ^^

Wow feels like Anet dug their own grave by adding such important DPS increases into the game and making sure they were accounted for when creating new content, I really wonder how that could be fixed!

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

6 hours ago, Suyheuti.1732 said:

Not only alac, quickness is OP boon too. Removal will be extreme but these two boons should have been only self generated boons, not group sharing. They should have entegrated to weapon skills like holosmith’s sw3.  

Honestly I agree.

There are few professions that have non boon based increases to action speed, like warrior with dual wielding trait or mesmer with malicious sorcery.

These are around 20% faster action speed and when they're on, the class just feels right. It's not quickness level (which is kinda turbo mode) but the auto chains as well as general action delays and wind ups feel much more smooth and flow real well into full rotations.

I feel these should be the things that can be perma under certain conditions, while quickness would be the sporadic burst of said "turbo" mode.

[Obtena.7952]

The irony I see here ... this might not be the balance people were asking for, but it's the balance that Anet was going to give them. Anet's balance has NEVER been about performance (or if it is ... we are still waiting to see it) and the introduction of roles wasn't going to fix that either. So while everyone was complaining that their class wasn't desirable in a team because it didn't have "insert boon here" ... well, Anet just 'fixed' that for all those people.

The result: there are still going to be instances where people play classes, even in their roles, where teams that are looking for meta won't want them. These players were wrong to ask for these boons, Anet took that idea and ran with it and nothing will change. Still people complaining they aren't desirable and Anet scratching their head why because they gave them the thing they asked for. 

The only shining light here is if you are a pure DPS role, because the only measure of that will be DPS. The sad part about that situation is that it give Anet lots of wiggle room to nerf the non-DPS elements of those spec if they desire, just to ensure they 'compete'. Gratz everyone ... we all just got pegged into roles and the changes we see to everything is going to reflect that. 

There is a scenario where these changes are in anticipation of expansion 4 ... but they didn't elude to that. Could have made for less outrage. 

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[KryTiKaL.3125]

There is also something to I think at least consider as a theory; that these balance changes were done with the incoming expansion changes to our "arsenals" in mind, i.e the access to Elite Spec weapons as well as the new sets of weapons, on top of the Rune rework with the addition of the "Relic" items.

Now it is just a theory but I think there is some merit to it considering how bizarre and off putting a lot of people view these changes as. The expansion is launching in August, which means this stuff was all very likely done in preparation for the incoming additional weapons which we don't know what they do yet, on top of the prior mentioned Rune rework and addition of the Relic items, again which we don't know what all of these Relics will be doing.

Now if this is the case they should have communicated this to the players. They've said they will make additional changes on July 18th but thats a good few weeks away (does that also mean they will fix the bugged stuff then as well? I hope not...thats too long for Revs to be tearing through WvW with 95% Damage Reduction and for Breaching Strike to not even be working). Regardless, just like in balance patches before expansion launches/announcements ANet has absolutely made changes entirely based upon the incoming content that the rest of us know absolutely nothing about. Yet.

I think that is the bigger issue; them making changes, claiming they will listen to feedback all while not communicating that these changes are also being made with currently unknown to us class updates coming with a big content release. At least tell us that as opposed to people being confused as to why these changes are happening as well as then angering them by pushing the patch through as is anyway.

People would have likely been more receptive and understanding of these changes had ANet communicated "Hey, so we are making considerations with the balance patch that includes as of yet announced updates to classes currently in the pipeline for the incoming expansion." Not hard.

No joke...even AGS communicates better than ANet. Yikes.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

9 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Good job on almost fully homogenizing the game's combat.

You have, at long last, introduced the KEY boons to all specs. 

You are either Quickness or Alacrity. That's it, no other utility, no unique skills, no real incentive to play a class over the other. Does Quicknesss Zerker work better than Quickness Chrono? If so, you should play the Chrono for it's unique skills right? Too bad there ain't NONE.

You stripped the last unique thing from especs and added it into core specs and elites. 

What's next? 

As a warrior I'd like to see you add Full COunter, Berserk Mode and Dragon Trigger all in 1 bar. 

It is about time we remove the traitlines and make every class an amalgamation of its parts.

No need for unique skills, no need for interesting counterplay like boon removal. 

I am a doomer I suppose. Enjoy this terrible game you have created. I know I haven't been for months and I am sad that I still feel a connection to it that makes me write such a paragraph. Agree or disagree, it's ok, what matters is not the enjoyment of combat, but the pleasure of total victory. 

Listen you're not really getting what homogenization is here bro...that's not completely your fault, its not an easy topic to wrap ones head around.

the homogenization problem, is the fact that numerical balance changes do not do anything to the balance of the game. Because the procedure of balancing either make all numbers the same, or not the same (unbalanced) because numbers are transitive. 

Introducing options to a game, in particular permutations are not transitive to a smaller number of permutations...in fact it's the opposite: the space of possible things that can happen, grows exponentially with each additional element. In fact making the game completely freeform would allow for infinite variety in the ability to customize and make a build.

Here is an example. I give you option A and B. You have 2^2 (4) possible permutations AB, BA, BB, AA.

I now give you option C. You now have 3^3 (27) possible AAA, AAB, AAC, ABA, ABB, ABC, ACA, ACB, ACC, BAA, BAB, BAC... and so on.

There's two perspectives you can have:

1) If A B and C options are all the same skill, cause they either all do the same things mechanically, or numerically, that is homogenization. A game of many "options" that all do the same thing, is not much of a game.

2) Pretend you build a game where you only are allowed to play AAA, because AAB, AAC ABA and so on are either not allowed by game design, or suck so bad  that it makes no sense to play those other options...

Both of these things is what Guild Wars 2 is : Lots of options, most of those options either can't be mixed together do to design (for the sake of quote "balance") and/or they suck so bad nobody takes them. These aren't mutually exclusive. Guild Wars 2 suffers from both of these things, and they both need to be addressed.

There's a bit more to the story which has to do with the fact that more permutable options leads to more possibilities for builds to find counters within that variety, and this is indeed is how nature appears both extremely diverse, and highly balanced.

The point of this comment, is to ask you not to confuse what these concepts mean. I spent a boatload of my time learning this stuff a while ago now, with the intention to help people understand this problem and with all due respect, those aren't words to just bandy around. They are not like gamer words...they are from math and science and have formal definitions that you should understand otherwise you're gonna wind up not really getting what it is that your actually saying. Again, I say that with all due respect man, please understand me here. Cheers.

Edited June 28, 2023 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

@KryTiKaL.3125 Spot on.

They completely dropped the ball announcing xpac at the same day patch went live.

"Hey guys, give us some feedback!  
But ...uh...    since you don't know about upcoming xpac changes it's no good so we'll ignore it".

All they had to do is announce the xpac like 3 weeks earlier, along with the patch to give players better perspective.
Oh and listen to the feeback a bit...

[Grand Marshal.4098]

1 hour ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Listen you're not really getting what homogenization is here bro...that's not completely your fault, its not an easy topic to wrap ones head around.

the homogenization problem, is the fact that numerical balance changes do not do anything to the balance of the game. Because the procedure of balancing either make all numbers the same, or not the same (unbalanced) because numbers are transitive. 

Introducing options to a game, in particular permutations are not transitive to a smaller number of permutations...in fact it's the opposite: the space of possible things that can happen, grows exponentially with each additional element. In fact making the game completely freeform would allow for infinite variety in the ability to customize and make a build.

Here is an example. I give you option A and B. You have 2^2 (4) possible permutations AB, BA, BB, AA.

I now give you option C. You now have 3^3 (27) possible AAA, AAB, AAC, ABA, ABB, ABC, ACA, ACB, ACC, BAA, BAB, BAC... and so on.

There's two perspectives you can have:

1) If A B and C options are all the same skill, cause they either all do the same things mechanically, or numerically, that is homogenization. A game of many "options" that all do the same thing, is not much of a game.

2) Pretend you build a game where you only are allowed to play AAA, because AAB, AAC ABA and so on are either not allowed by game design, or suck so bad  that it makes no sense to play those other options...

Both of these things is what Guild Wars 2 is : Lots of options, most of those options either can't be mixed together do to design (for the sake of quote "balance") and/or they suck so bad nobody takes them. These aren't mutually exclusive. Guild Wars 2 suffers from both of these things, and they both need to be addressed.

There's a bit more to the story which has to do with the fact that more permutable options leads to more possibilities for builds to find counters within that variety, and this is indeed is how nature appears both extremely diverse, and highly balanced.

The point of this comment, is to ask you not to confuse what these concepts mean. I spent a boatload of my time learning this stuff a while ago now, with the intention to help people understand this problem and with all due respect, those aren't words to just bandy around. They are not like gamer words...they are from math and science and have formal definitions that you should understand otherwise you're gonna wind up not really getting what it is that your actually saying. Again, I say that with all due respect man, please understand me here. Cheers.

Thanks for going into that much effort to make up your response, but homogenization is the process of making things uniform or similar according to the definition I know, hence the way I used the word. If  you are telling me that boon support in the game is not identical in classes, or how roles shared by all the classes (Quick/Alac/Boonrip etc) don't have room for niche, class-defining concepts, then I don't think we need to delve into the philosophy of mathematics for just a terribly balanced game where numbers, as you said, are the only change that happens, while mechanics and means of executing such mechanics is not explored at all for years now.

In any case, the point remains, Anet is killing the diversity of the game. This calls for immediate core class changes, which naturally, they won't bother with.
 

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

27 minutes ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Thanks for going into that much effort to make up your response, but homogenization is the process of making things uniform or similar according to the definition I know, hence the way I used the word. If  you are telling me that boon support in the game is not identical in classes, or how roles shared by all the classes (Quick/Alac/Boonrip etc) don't have room for niche, class-defining concepts, then I don't think we need to delve into the philosophy of mathematics for just a terribly balanced game where numbers, as you said, are the only change that happens, while mechanics and means of executing such mechanics is not explored at all for years now.

In any case, the point remains, Anet is killing the diversity of the game. This calls for immediate core class changes, which naturally, they won't bother with.
 

Hey. No sorry I think I made a mistake when reading what you wrote. I thought you were talking about weapons (making elite weapons on a class available to core in the next expansion) but I think someone else brought that up and made me think your post was about that, and not particularly about the boon stuff. My fault for interpreting your post that way.

Homogenization does mean uniformity and sameness, and that is indeed what those procedures do. Handing out those mechanics out to everyone, and removing unique mechanics homogenizes the games features.

Keep in mind what i said though, is that number changes (numerical nerfs and buffs), do not change the game in any meaningful way (which is called the homogenization problem) and It is in fact only mechanics and the number of elements that change the game in a meaningful way, and like you said, Anet hasn’t touched this really in years.

with this comment we clarify that we are on the same page and see eye to eye here. Cheers.

Edited June 28, 2023 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Astralporing.1957]

10 hours ago, Myror.7521 said:

@Grand Marshal.4098 i mean thats what they said at the Games launch and thats how the Game was meant to be. Every class could do everything still some could do other stuff better than others but yea you get it xd

Well, that was, if you forget, bundled with other assertion - that every player should be pretty much self-sufficient. That's, obviously, not what we have now.

[Myror.7521]

@Astralporing.1957 thats true tho. The said thing was part of core GW2 and I think the new devs seem to want to go Back to this rule (more or less). Even the new Fractal is just mechanicly done that you need to do the mechanics instead of just stacking and healer doing their job. Thats said, we got healing classes cause of raids back then also they can't shift the Meta complete with just 1 or 2 Balance patches. I think we might to see First what A-Net is going for ^^

[Astralporing.1957]

1 minute ago, Myror.7521 said:

I think we might to see First what A-Net is going for ^^

In expectations of what we might see, i have just resubbed to FF XIV yesterday. Just saying.

[Myror.7521]

@Astralporing.1957 Well just to compensate the sad Balance state rn im also playing something else as a side game cause not gonna lie the Balance is just a mess rn. This been said I also have the most fun since long times in this game...... even while its in this state. It does still feel ways better than letz say the Last 2 or 3 years. At least to me 

[Lctl.6198]

4 hours ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

 The expansion is launching in August, which means this stuff was all very likely done in preparation for the incoming additional weapons which we don't know what they do yet, on top of the prior mentioned Rune rework and addition of the Relic items, again which we don't know what all of these Relics will be doing.

. Regardless, just like in balance patches before expansion launches/announcements ANet has absolutely made changes entirely based upon the incoming content that the rest of us know absolutely nothing about. Yet.

People would have likely been more receptive and understanding of these changes had ANet communicated "Hey, so we are making considerations with the balance patch that includes as of yet announced updates to classes currently in the pipeline for the incoming expansion." Not hard.

You're right - but I would point out that, due to how gear and skills work - do you honestly think that it will change or improve ANYTHING about what was done with this patch?

The answer is a blunt NO.

They're gonna release another Elite spec and call it a day.

Whatever happens in the expansion, it will have no positive saying on the gameplay *affected by this patch*- why? Because imagine this ( I only play scourge - RIP - so I'll use it as an example ) :

- Shade duration went from 20s to 8s.

Even if they release a weapon or relic or system in the expansion to increase the duration - what's the point? Now I have to buy an expansion just so I can regain the power I lost? and there's still no guarantee it will go back to the previous values.

On top of that, if that's what the weapon/relic/system (whatever...) does - it's extremely lazy. (And restrictive)
It feels like those situations where supermarkets increase the prices the day before they have a big sale, just to say they discounted it by 80%!!!!! Such value!! (which is ilegal in most countries by the way..)

 

So no, while you're right and this was done with the expansion in mind and we know little to nothing about it - the harm is done.
They broke something, and are literal *promising* to sell us the fix for it. (No guarantee)

Given ANet track record, we can't even trust their timeframe for the "fixes" themselves. So they're asking us to live on a prayer and hope, while still paying them for content.

It's a lack of care that can potentially kill a game that actually saw a bit of a resurgence in recent times (imho).

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Lctl.6198

[KryTiKaL.3125]

32 minutes ago, Lctl.6198 said:

You're right - but I would point out that, due to how gear and skills work - do you honestly think that it will change or improve ANYTHING about what was done with this patch?

The answer is a blunt NO.

They're gonna release another Elite spec and call it a day.

Whatever happens in the expansion, it will have no positive saying on the gameplay *affected by this patch*- why? Because imagine this ( I only play scourge - RIP - so I'll use it as an example ) :

- Shade duration went from 20s to 8s.

Even if they release a weapon or relic or system in the expansion to increase the duration - what's the point? Now I have to buy an expansion just so I can regain the power I lost? and there's still no guarantee it will go back to the previous values.

On top of that, if that's what the weapon/relic/system (whatever...) does - it's extremely lazy. (And restrictive)
It feels like those situations where supermarkets increase the prices the day before they have a big sale, just to say they discounted it by 80%!!!!! Such value!! (which is ilegal in most countries by the way..)

 

So no, while you're right and this was done with the expansion in mind and we know little to nothing about it - the harm is done.
They broke something, and are literal *promising* to sell us the fix for it. (No guarantee)

Given ANet track record, we can't even trust their timeframe for the "fixes" themselves. So they're asking us to live on a prayer and hope, while still paying them for content.

It's a lack of care that can potentially kill a game that actually saw a bit of a resurgence in recent times (imho).

 

I'm not asserting that the changes didn't do any harm, I'm asserting that they were fairly visibly done with the incoming expansion updates in mind and they are "paving the way", so to speak, for these new things by dragging down currently established class tools and otherwise.

Like they have done practically every pre-expansion balance update before.

Whether or not Relics will have a significant enough impact on class builds we don't know yet, alongside what the new weapons incoming for classes will do as well.

What is and what always will be ANets biggest issue, apparently, is its communication. They've made strides in improving it but they absolutely dropped the ball when it came to how they very likely approached making these balance updates.

I know its difficult to see beyond the very justified frustration towards them for this stuff, but I am fairly confident that had they announced the expansion before or even when they initially unveiled the balance patch notes earlier this month, or at least indicated that they were approaching the balance update with the incoming expansion updates in mind, people would have viewed the changes through a different lens.

It wouldn't have been hard for them to do so either, as I indicated before, but...they didn't. Thats a pretty bad slip up in my opinion, and ANet does seem to consistently have those when it comes to communication and marketing for this game.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

1 hour ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Hey. No sorry I think I made a mistake when reading what you wrote. I thought you were talking about weapons (making elite weapons on a class available to core in the next expansion) but I think someone else brought that up and made me think your post was about that, and not particularly about the boon stuff. My fault for interpreting your post that way.

Homogenization does mean uniformity and sameness, and that is indeed what those procedures do. Handing out those mechanics out to everyone, and removing unique mechanics homogenizes the games features.

Keep in mind what i said though, is that number changes (numerical nerfs and buffs), do not change the game in any meaningful way (which is called the homogenization problem) and It is in fact only mechanics and the number of elements that change the game in a meaningful way, and like you said, Anet hasn’t touched this really in years.

with this comment we clarify that we are on the same page and see eye to eye here. Cheers.

Aye, I agree with that. I'm glad our opinions align. It shows that people have realized what the underlying issue is with the game.

Ofc anet doesn't get that. And I don't expect them to rework core mechanics and abilities to cater to this weird, merged, non-espec form of theorycrafting.

I said it, if weapons is step 1, step 2 is cross spec utilities and step 3 will be the removal of elite spec traitlines altogether, making it possible to build multi espec lines.

And of course they will fail. No way they plan for numerous mini expansions and will stick to "weapon mastery" only. 

 

Not to mention how this is a middle finger to warrior and the catering to the privileged Blue class continues.