It's time for new balance devs. Again.

[itspomf.9523]

Why we aren't holding a quarterly Round Table meeting with the community to address concerns, look at future wants/asks, and help with steering the game's development in a cooperative, unified manner is beyond me.

Singular representatives like we had in discord obviously weren't helping, as their personal views were too narrow, but it's also clear that for the past few years, neither is Anet willing to read the forums (and the devs only infrequently interacted with reddit).

But the biggest calamity of all of this has been pointed out by others:  there's no communication.

We're getting patch notes with literal WEEKS of feedback and insightful commentary (even if you've got to search for it at times), but absolutely nothing to say "we hear you and we're making changes."  Just a halfhearted, turbid response after it goes live, completely unchanged, that "oops, guess we'll fix it later!" which is emphatically not healthy for the game or the community.

And I get it, players aren't perfect.  We're just as prone to bias as anyone, sometimes more so, but when a huge percentage of the community is shouting "wait, no, go back" and you nevertheless willfully charge yourself off a cliff, one has to ask who, precisely, is causing the problem.

[Batalix.2873]

2 hours ago, itspomf.9523 said:

Why we aren't holding a quarterly Round Table meeting with the community to address concerns, look at future wants/asks, and help with steering the game's development in a cooperative, unified manner is beyond me.

Singular representatives like we had in discord obviously weren't helping, as their personal views were too narrow, but it's also clear that for the past few years, neither is Anet willing to read the forums (and the devs only infrequently interacted with reddit).

But the biggest calamity of all of this has been pointed out by others:  there's no communication.

We're getting patch notes with literal WEEKS of feedback and insightful commentary (even if you've got to search for it at times), but absolutely nothing to say "we hear you and we're making changes."  Just a halfhearted, turbid response after it goes live, completely unchanged, that "oops, guess we'll fix it later!" which is emphatically not healthy for the game or the community.

And I get it, players aren't perfect.  We're just as prone to bias as anyone, sometimes more so, but when a huge percentage of the community is shouting "wait, no, go back" and you nevertheless willfully charge yourself off a cliff, one has to ask who, precisely, is causing the problem.

There's no communication because the game we enjoy, want, and think we are getting is not the game they are making.

We are operating under the assumption that there is some continuity with past iterations of the game, particularly the HoT/PoF era that built out so much of what made the game and continued to sustain it through IBS and EoD.

The devs are not making that game, and everyone needs to come to terms with that. They are making effectively a soft-reset, a completely new game, GW2.0, where most of the better features of that era are being reused and made much more available, while the old expansions will just become a desert.

But hey, I guess this means a better chance at playable Tengu for all the short-sighted people clamoring for that.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Zephire.8049]

8 hours ago, Imperial.8471 said:

Of course some people are idiots. But it's on both the player's and the developper's sides. Or did you forget the previous balance team lead who boosted or nerfed classes based on what he liked ? 

It's a matter of critical thinking, being able to sort objective valuable feedback and whining based on selfish wishes. And it's part of the balance team's job. Problem is their own view of balance seems to be of the second sort

Yep. If they want feedback stated and/or formatted in a certain way, they need to provide that. Players aren't mind readers, after all. They specifically asked for feedback without saying what sort of feedback they were looking for and it's their job to sort the useful parts from the chaff. If they can't handle reading feedback after explicitly soliciting it, that's their problem and I question whether they should be in a position where player pushback is guaranteed no matter what they do.

[Burnfall.9573]

Anet has adopted Totalitarianism Philosophy for Guild Wars 2 Community and its players, its decision making, its designs, its rules, its results, its reasonings, its practicalities, its belief system, its game system, its game designs,  its balances, its environment experience, its players experiences, its changes, its identities, Profession Identities, Profession roles, its Ultimatum Total Control... to have the Player and the Community...To Play The Game Their Way!!...Anet Way!!

 

"Totalitarianism is a form of government that attempts to assert total control over the lives of its citizens. It is characterized by strong central rule that attempts to control and direct all aspects of individual life through coercion and repression. It does not permit individual freedom. Traditional social institutions and organizations are discouraged and suppressed, making people more willing to be merged into a single unified movement. Totalitarian states typically pursue a special goal to the exclusion of all others, with all resources directed toward its attainment, regardless of the cost."

 

-Anet Totalitarianism Philosophy will be responsible for Guild Wars 2 lifecycle to end in 3 years or to Immediately remove.. all elements...all individuals; who are responsible for adapting this Toxic Philosophy in Guild Wars 2 environment and to its Community players experiences- 

Edited July 4, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[Dante.1508]

Seems to be par the course.. New expansions arrive they make specs good then systematically destroy them before the next expac arrives.. All the while totally ignoring or nerfing all the older specs.. to promote new and shiny.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Dante.1508

[Echostorm.9143]

Problem is we're not getting anything new and shiny in this expansion, just continuing the long nerfing and sucking the fun out of all the classes to create boring rotation specs to turn all all into human macros.

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 6/28/2023 at 4:57 PM, GetFoxxed.9478 said:

Exactly. What even is the point of art, coding, creative and other teams doing their best if balance team will turn all of their effort to dust by making stuff unenjoyable?

I thought about this plenty of times over the years when I played gw2. A lot of artistic and technical skill is being actively WASTED on mediocre to bad game design and management.

[Sugar Min.5834]

It's like instead of balancing builds, they broke almost everything because of Alacrity and Quickness. Might as well change the name of the coming expansion to iAQoN ~ It's Alacrity and Quickness or nothing. There is no class identity at all.  Everyone can do Alacrity and Quickness, yep that's all we need.

Just remove Alacrity and Quickness from the game since they can't do them right. I rather sacrfice AQ than the rest of the boons.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Min Min.9368

[Solstice.5790]

"WHO WE ARE

We’re ArenaNet. We make the games we want to play and infuse them with innovation, hand-crafted detail, and creative passion. [...]"

Direct quote from at least three of their job offerings. For your consideration.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Solstice.5790

[nutri.1385]

Ok, I calmed down a bit. I still don't think this thread is an overreaction though. 

I've watched Mukluk's thoughts on the balance update and the damage it caused to a lot of established playstyles. I can't stop wondering why the balance team doesn't organise closed beta tests with the ANet partners before such changes? I'm 200% positive that there are players who would be thrilled to be given this opportunity, even for free, because a shitload of us cares deeply about Guild Wars, we've played it during it's lows and highs. It's not perfect, never was, but we effin love this game. 

Please think about organising closed beta tests before blowing up the meta like this. Revolutions can be great, but for real. This is not the way of designing and communicating changes, especially after the overwhelming negative feedback coming from the players. That feedback should be an orange flag (at least!) before hitting the "release the Kraken" button.

We don't flame on the forums for the fun and out of spite or hatred (at least most of us aren't, I hope). Please start treating us like your game community, we continue to be loyal (a lot of us are), we're excited for the new expansion (can't wait to finally reach that tower, after so many failed attempts with my skyscale 🙃), but such situations like that patch are like a knife to the heart! 

[Echostorm.9143]

8 hours ago, nutri.1385 said:

Ok, I calmed down a bit. I still don't think this thread is an overreaction though. 

I've watched Mukluk's thoughts on the balance update and the damage it caused to a lot of established playstyles. I can't stop wondering why the balance team doesn't organise closed beta tests with the ANet partners before such changes? I'm 200% positive that there are players who would be thrilled to be given this opportunity, even for free, because a shitload of us cares deeply about Guild Wars, we've played it during it's lows and highs. It's not perfect, never was, but we effin love this game. 

Please think about organising closed beta tests before blowing up the meta like this. Revolutions can be great, but for real. This is not the way of designing and communicating changes, especially after the overwhelming negative feedback coming from the players. That feedback should be an orange flag (at least!) before hitting the "release the Kraken" button.

We don't flame on the forums for the fun and out of spite or hatred (at least most of us aren't, I hope). Please start treating us like your game community, we continue to be loyal (a lot of us are), we're excited for the new expansion (can't wait to finally reach that tower, after so many failed attempts with my skyscale 🙃), but such situations like that patch are like a knife to the heart! 

It isn't an overreaction but I do think it's more the straw that broke the camel's back than just one bad patch.  The complaints that have arisen from this patch have been there for years, it's just come to a head now with this latest tone deaf mess.  Anet needs to admit that the current combat and balance system isn't working and engage with the community about a path forward.

[Felices Bladewing.3914]

On 7/1/2023 at 10:12 PM, Garrick.3150 said:

This is actually a really interesting take I haven't seen many people bring up.

You're seeing two popular yet contradictory opinions floating around the community. On the one has people are decrying the loss of class/elite spec identity, and on the other they're so excited that they'll now have access to every weapon in the game. Everyone having access to the exact same weapons is a loss of identity and eventually the "is that a Holosmith with a hammer," schtick is going to wear off in my opinion. The balance implications of such a change are something we're only starting to realize in this patch.

It's funny because the popular narrative currently is that Anet would never have implemented boons in the way that they did if they knew what it would snowball into today, and yet we seem to be going down a similar path right now with few people really discussing it because new shiny stuff.

It's no wonder they're being so conservative with changes given that upcoming weapon change alone will break the game, and honestly there's just going to be some classes/elite specs that leave others in the dust. If we thought June's boonpocalypse patch was confusing, imagine what SotO will be like.

Regardless, it currently feels like we're in a state of limbo and I do think it's reasonable to fault the devs for that. Our access to end game content and overall enjoyment of the game is being affected far ahead of the new patch. That's not how it should be. Why should we be wondering which way to go with our builds for this long when SotO doesn't come out for another month and half. It's just prolonged suffering without a plethora of new content to get us through it.

in my opinion the issue with making every espec weapon baseline is not the loss of identity but a big issue of balance. while some professions will get god-like combinations that might break the game again other gain basically nothing or only mediocre choices.

i genuinely think the corner they drove themselves into with elite specializations is something they can’t fix on a short notice.

[XenesisII.1540]

Your forums posts are not going to matter one bit, I'm sure the only reason Solar was even replaced last year, was based on the leaked discord chat and not even the biased balancing job they were doing, just as the current dev in charge.

There is something on Aug 22nd that will get their attention though, just depends on your willpower to hold out to get the attention balancing needs. 🤔🤷‍♂️🍦

[JTGuevara.9018]

48 minutes ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Your forums posts are not going to matter one bit, I'm sure the only reason Solar was even replaced last year, was based on the leaked discord chat and not even the biased balancing job they were doing, just as the current dev in charge.

There is something on Aug 22nd that will get their attention though, just depends on your willpower to hold out to get the attention balancing needs. 🤔🤷‍♂️🍦

That is only because nobody reads anymore. You need a social media pulpit with a pretty face or charismatic voice to get people to listen. Doubly so in a country like the US, where anti-intellectualism and excessive pride runs deep. People don't care enough to read deeply since they have such short attention spans.

[Batalix.2873]

2 hours ago, Felices Bladewing.3914 said:

in my opinion the issue with making every espec weapon baseline is not the loss of identity but a big issue of balance. while some professions will get god-like combinations that might break the game again other gain basically nothing or only mediocre choices.

i genuinely think the corner they drove themselves into with elite specializations is something they can’t fix on a short notice.

It's both. Especs kind of rested on a few small additions to define themselves:

* New central mechanic

* New specialization traits

* New slot skills type

* New weapon

None of these are particularly huge changes to the class by themselves, but together seemed enough to justify what were effectively GW2's version of "subclasses".

Breaking down any one of those four pillars inevitably erodes/dilutes each espec's identity. Whether especs were all that good of a system or worth keeping is a different discussion. But indisputably, breaking apart pieces of the espec system while still keeping it in place just objectively lessens its whole structure and aims. I don't like this halfway change--pick one or the other ANet. Bolster especs or delete them. Don't try to bleed money from me over the next few years on this laziest of "will they won't they" cliffhangers.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[XenesisII.1540]

Next expansion after they'll open up the e-spec utility skills like they're doing with the e-spec weapons, Secrets of the Recycled. 🤭🍦

[Darkblade.7634]

Quote

11 hours ago, nutri.1385 said:

Ok, I calmed down a bit. I still don't think this thread is an overreaction though. 

I've watched Mukluk's thoughts on the balance update and the damage it caused to a lot of established playstyles. I can't stop wondering why the balance team doesn't organise closed beta tests with the ANet partners before such changes? I'm 200% positive that there are players who would be thrilled to be given this opportunity, even for free, because a shitload of us cares deeply about Guild Wars, we've played it during it's lows and highs. It's not perfect, never was, but we effin love this game. 

Please think about organising closed beta tests before blowing up the meta like this. Revolutions can be great, but for real. This is not the way of designing and communicating changes, especially after the overwhelming negative feedback coming from the players. That feedback should be an orange flag (at least!) before hitting the "release the Kraken" button.

We don't flame on the forums for the fun and out of spite or hatred (at least most of us aren't, I hope). Please start treating us like your game community, we continue to be loyal (a lot of us are), we're excited for the new expansion (can't wait to finally reach that tower, after so many failed attempts with my skyscale 🙃), but such situations like that patch are like a knife to the heart! 

 

As long as they only make the beta servers and the feedback they listen to exclusive to a small group of players that have intensive game knowledge and experience when it comes to endgame, pvp and wvw.

I really hope they dont ever listen to the biggest part of the community in the forum and on social Media platforms like reddit because most people lack basic understanding about the game and show it always again in the postings when it comes to responses to balance patches.

[Burnfall.9573]

13 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

You spitballed it in this thread. Can't believe it's been two years already since made that post. 🤭🍦

 

10 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Your forums posts are not going to matter one bit, I'm sure the only reason Solar was even replaced last year, was based on the leaked discord chat and not even the biased balancing job they were doing, just as the current dev in charge.

There is something on Aug 22nd that will get their attention though, just depends on your willpower to hold out to get the attention balancing needs. 🤔🤷‍♂️🍦

Oh!!..I am ready with....an empty wallet 🤑 😁

(Bad Design Stealth Mechanic, Bad Profession Design, Thief Profession, +1 shot, Death of Profession Roles and Identity, Profession Role Hijack and Profession Identity Theft, Favoritism, Bias, Toxic Philosophy, Toxic Culture, hacks, exploits...tolerating Toxicity in the game design and toward the Community experience, Refusal to Communicate with the Community concerning our concerns, Refusal to resolves, endless and repetitive root cause problems ....everything else......)

N-E-V-E-R ! !  !

Edited July 7, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[nutri.1385]

8 hours ago, Darkblade.7634 said:

As long as they only make the beta servers and the feedback they listen to exclusive to a small group of players that have intensive game knowledge and experience when it comes to endgame, pvp and wvw.

That's what I meant. 

Massive open betas aren't that great for gathering feedback, just like the opinions about the new weaponmaster changes, that we could check out last weekend. Everyone has a different playstyle, needs and stuff, probably most checked out only their classes and hardly anyone is really an expert. 

As you said, we'd need someone dedicated and knowledgeable, ideally people who usually stand behind the metas and builds that the others just follow (me included, I just follow them, because I trust them - definitely more than I trust the balance devs 🙃). 

[AlPower.2476]

I'm not into the firing CmC idea; literally removing a person's source of income without the opportunity to learn and improve, especially in something that nobody studies or is an expert in, such as balancing Guild Wars 2 ("But there are experts in balancing games, X had balanced Y game for years, they can hire him"; yeah, but balancing Guild Wars 2 has nothing to do with balancing League of Legends, or balancing Elden Ring, etc.). Also CmC has done some welcome improvents; although some bad things. But if he doesn't improve and continues with its bias towards a certain class... well..

And with the lack of comunication is harder to know well what is in balancing team minds.

Edited July 7, 2023 by AlPower.2476

[XenesisII.1540]

12 hours ago, AlPower.2476 said:

I'm not into the firing CmC idea; literally removing a person's source of income without the opportunity to learn and improve, especially in something that nobody studies or is an expert in, such as balancing Guild Wars 2 ("But there are experts in balancing games, X had balanced Y game for years, they can hire him"; yeah, but balancing Guild Wars 2 has nothing to do with balancing League of Legends, or balancing Elden Ring, etc.). Also CmC has done some welcome improvents; although some bad things. But if he doesn't improve and continues with its bias towards a certain class... well..

And with the lack of comunication is harder to know well what is in balancing team minds.

You do realize he's been with anet and the balance team for years right? It's not like he was some new hire last year after the Solar change, he was also involved in the big damage apocalypse of feb 2020. Pretty sure there's been plenty of "opportunity to learn and improve". His obvious bias for Elementalist also doesn't help, especially given his position is suppose to be balancing 9 professions/36 specs, not hyper focused on making 1 profession/4 specs bloated good in everything. 😒

[Gendalfs.7521]

Not fire him, just let him step down. But who could get his position, wise enough to balance this all what they did?

[Kasumi.8532]

Add more people to the balance team (like 4-5 for a start) and get rid of that secret discord where they only get feedback from streamers and youtubers. The latter is a recipe for disaster as shown with Blizzard's Overwatch (and ANet Solar). Streamers / youtubers often don't care about balance, they usually care about the number of people that watch their streams / videos.

[Burnfall.9573]

17 hours ago, Gendalfs.7521 said:

Not fire him, just let him step down. But who could get his position, wise enough to balance this all what they did?

I don't believe in blaming everything on a person unless the person is the one, making the final decision and executing the decision into action.

If Anet had a Zero-Bias-Favoritism Philosophy, no amount of personal Bias, Favoritism...would carry through. In fact, those would dare bring their personal agenda, personal Bias and Favoritism...would Automatically be flagged as a threat and be Terminated!!

That is how Philosophy fucntion; it functions like a Foundation...Cornerstone...Structure

 

Example;

If someone working at your business, comes out with an idea to commit Espionage; to steal the Business Financial Resources.. knowing well that, there are Zero Espionage Philosophy in the Business structure...what would you do?

Would you Tolerate this Espionage Employee to carry their plans or to immediately report this Espionage Employee to be immediately prosecuted...to the highest punishment by law? Obviously, being immediately terminated after the law enforcement comprehended that person  

"A house built on granite and strong foundations, not even the onslaught of pouring rain, gushing torrents and strong winds will be able to pull down."

If Anet Philosophy was build on a  strong foundation, cornerstone and structure...Personal Bias and Favoritism...would never be Tolerated!!

Therefore;  Anet Philosophy is....solely blamed for allowing personal Bias and Favoritism to be Guild Wars 2 Foundation and Cornerstone

-There is only one remedy to this situation...'a fresh start'; a new Leadership with an anti-bias, anti-favoritisim Philosophy; including building a new team who shares the same Philosophy

 

Simple as that!!

Edited July 8, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[rotten.9753]

On 7/6/2023 at 2:37 AM, Min Min.9368 said:

It's like instead of balancing builds, they broke almost everything because of Alacrity and Quickness. Might as well change the name of the coming expansion to iAQoN ~ It's Alacrity and Quickness or nothing. There is no class identity at all.  Everyone can do Alacrity and Quickness, yep that's all we need.

Just remove Alacrity and Quickness from the game since they can't do them right. I rather sacrfice AQ than the rest of the boons.

Was it really better when only chronos could do both, that warriors were always sought for their banners, and that only a druid could heal? 6 spots already taken

If the problem is that both Quickness and Alacrity remove class identity, what about other boons? Every class can apply Might, Fury or Regeneration. Is class identity non-existent because of these boons as well?