Lets just erase alac and quickness and stop this mess.

[rotten.9753]

3 hours ago, cyberzombie.7348 said:

That's how the vanilla game was balanced for the most part. You were already strong without em and boons were actual temporary buffs, instead of a permanent necessity.

Vanilla was so far away from being balanced, I would never put those two words together. Since both Quickness and Alacrity change your rotation flow, having them temporary is just asking for a higher skill floor and general annoyance from the player base, they should either be permanent like now or removed, ideally with other boons. However, that won't ever happen.

[ScottBroChill.3254]

I think there definitely needs to be defined roles like alacrity and quickness providers to make team composition. What I don't like is it being quickness and alacrity. They're just too overpowered, and since it is basically a retroactively applied boon and design, it's shoe horned into weird ways of providing it like basically spamming a bunch of skills whos main effects get ignored in favor of an OP boon. And the 100% uptime of all boons takes all the thinking and skill out of the combat, unlike aegis which is more reactionary.

I wish the game was designed from the start in a way to provide a better, more direct play style that allowed an easier way to target allies, and proper support builds and weapons. But we're well past that.

[Leo G.4501]

6 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

Yes, passive buffs are what made the game better in the past and what made the professions truly diverse.

There's a give and take aspect to it, when looking at the big picture. Take replaced unique "profession boons" with "generic boons", basically. It's kind of a downgrade which isn't all that bad, IMO...but the point is, they can look at ways to revamp "effect that increases activation speed" and "effect that lowers cooldown" in various ways but that would need to start by nixing quickness and alacrity as a generic boon.

[Leo G.4501]

6 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

Vanilla was so far away from being balanced, I would never put those two words together. Since both Quickness and Alacrity change your rotation flow, having them temporary is just asking for a higher skill floor and general annoyance from the player base, they should either be permanent like now or removed, ideally with other boons. However, that won't ever happen.

They technically aren't permanent.  The "skill floor" as of now is around making them permanent which is pretty lame.

Also, this notion that altering rotation flow with fluctuating activation speeds is funny to me. That sounds like a skill *ceiling* issue, not a skill floor issue.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

37 minutes ago, Leo G.4501 said:

They technically aren't permanent.  The "skill floor" as of now is around making them permanent which is pretty lame.

Also, this notion that altering rotation flow with fluctuating activation speeds is funny to me. That sounds like a skill *ceiling* issue, not a skill floor issue.

It's really easy to provide any, or almost all boons, with 100% uptime these days, with the right spec/build. The only real trick left is doing it without losing too much DPS. And let's be honest, even that's negligible with the way some especs can provide boons and damage. 

I suppose if you really want a challenge, you can pick mirage or willbender and see how much alacrity you can pump out in viper gear. Ooo, thrilling. 

I completely agree about the comparison to skill floor and ceiling. It's not that hard to know that you have to spam skills and OP boons a bit faster when the defiance bar hit zero. 🙃

[ShadowInTheVoid.9183]

This may be a bit of a hot take but..................

Remove group alac and quickness from traits completely and put it on Relics..........
They're adding Relics to unlink rune effects from runes, as well as big bonuses to damage, health, movement speed ect.

They could add ones like  "When you grant barrier you also grant Alacrity", "Your pets gives quickness to nearby allies", "Wells give alacrity to nearby allies" etc. etc. just a whole bunch of options that give you different options for both.

That way you can just play whatever spec you want and just pick the relic that matches you play style. You wouldn't be able to use the damage boosting Relics so there would be a trade off but they can balance that easily.

 

[Leo G.4501]

On 8/9/2023 at 9:31 AM, ShadowInTheVoid.9183 said:

This may be a bit of a hot take but..................

Remove group alac and quickness from traits completely and put it on Relics..........
They're adding Relics to unlink rune effects from runes, as well as big bonuses to damage, health, movement speed ect.

They could add ones like  "When you grant barrier you also grant Alacrity", "Your pets gives quickness to nearby allies", "Wells give alacrity to nearby allies" etc. etc. just a whole bunch of options that give you different options for both.

That way you can just play whatever spec you want and just pick the relic that matches you play style. You wouldn't be able to use the damage boosting Relics so there would be a trade off but they can balance that easily.

 

I have the suspicion that it's going to be the reverse. Basically, they aren't going to buff relics to fill out the mechanics of runes, but rather reign them in because their modular effectiveness will cause issues that need to be fixed. It might start out super great but over time, they will have to add in increasing icd's, limited numbers and homogenized activations.

Could be a hottake, but I'd rather be proven wrong. That said, it would probably be a longshot for them to hinge team support specs on relics. I don't even know if it would be all that accessible if it was best case scenario unless the non-alacrity/quickness options were so attractive to make them exclusive for DPS specs....then you're mostly doing the homogenization methods of limiting x relic to x role.

[Lakemine.3014]

On 7/25/2023 at 5:42 PM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

The downside is in the philosophy itself, and in the nature of human beings that are optimizers of games based on numbers.

Here's how it goes... A B C D E F G are your options in the game. A is the "the meta" for whatever arbitrary reason, so every player requires you to bring A. You decide that your philosophy will be to "just remove it" so you remove it and now you have B C D E F G... some time passes and now B is "the meta" so every player requires you to bring B. You decide once more to just remove it...so now you have C D E F G...then D E F G...then E F G...then F G... you see where this is going?

The act of "just removing it" turns out to be self destructive: a systemic removal of the games elements, because of players doing an optimization processes on the games state.

The typical naïve response is usually of the form : "but if B C D E F G are equal then is balanced" but the problem is B C D E F G are never equal. Additionally, the complexity of the game is such that there will never be a way to tell how A effects the hierarchy of A B C D E F G. It could very well be that A is what makes CDEFG on equal footing to B....and with the removal, this equal footing disappears.

I'll try to repeat this again. The complexity of Guild Wars 2 is complex in such a way, where elements rely on the existence of other elements, and those elements rely on the existence of other elements and so on... When elements disappear, the changes in these relationships cascade throughout the whole game and it becomes unknowable exactly what will happen as a result of such things. Ultimately it doesn't actually "solve" anything because the process of optimization continues to push on the creation of a hierarchy...and thus the acting of "removing" things as a philosophy is critically flawed. 

If I can make an analogy, it is the same kind of phenomena when animals are introduced or taken away from ecosystems they are apart of...things drastically change...Like for example the first attempt at animal conservation at Yellowstone, where Americans thought wolves would be a danger to the local sheep and livestock, so they did a systemic annihlation of the species, about 300 or so wolves killed. turned out that the small population of wolves, were keeping elks in check...elks turned out to eat all the grass and their sheer numbers stomped the land into rock. with all the grass eaten and unable to grow back, the park turned into a desert (lmao)

So back to guild wars 2...what happens if you start removing things? Then "the next thing" will usurp what optomizers choose as the optimal way to play the game, and this might be much worse problem then before.

If I had to take a guess : Quickness massively benefits builds that have simple rotations, over those that do not, by a disproportionate amount (because auto-attacks don't benefit from alacrity, where complex builds benefit from both quickness and alacrity)  Therefor, auto-attack like builds, will have DPS drastically lower, then complex build counterparts. So if you were having fun playing a simple rotation, get us-to playing more complicated rotations.

Ahh ok. That makes logical sense. I just can't help the feeling of "Why is it ok then and accepted to be disclusionary, nasty and ruining fun of what specs people want to play because of optimization being pushed by not only the devs but the elitist minded "rulers" of meta drives?" Maybe i'm in a minority? Or I just don't understand how most people think/operate? Just seems very......wrong to have that as the accepted viewpoint and it be not just accepted but pushed on many people. Maybe someday someone can explain it to be that makes sense and doesn't harm people. *shrug*

[Lakemine.3014]

On 7/25/2023 at 5:42 PM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

The downside is in the philosophy itself, and in the nature of human beings that are optimizers of games based on numbers.

Here's how it goes... A B C D E F G are your options in the game. A is the "the meta" for whatever arbitrary reason, so every player requires you to bring A. You decide that your philosophy will be to "just remove it" so you remove it and now you have B C D E F G... some time passes and now B is "the meta" so every player requires you to bring B. You decide once more to just remove it...so now you have C D E F G...then D E F G...then E F G...then F G... you see where this is going?

The act of "just removing it" turns out to be self destructive: a systemic removal of the games elements, because of players doing an optimization processes on the games state.

The typical naïve response is usually of the form : "but if B C D E F G are equal then is balanced" but the problem is B C D E F G are never equal. Additionally, the complexity of the game is such that there will never be a way to tell how A effects the hierarchy of A B C D E F G. It could very well be that A is what makes CDEFG on equal footing to B....and with the removal, this equal footing disappears.

I'll try to repeat this again. The complexity of Guild Wars 2 is complex in such a way, where elements rely on the existence of other elements, and those elements rely on the existence of other elements and so on... When elements disappear, the changes in these relationships cascade throughout the whole game and it becomes unknowable exactly what will happen as a result of such things. Ultimately it doesn't actually "solve" anything because the process of optimization continues to push on the creation of a hierarchy...and thus the acting of "removing" things as a philosophy is critically flawed. 

If I can make an analogy, it is the same kind of phenomena when animals are introduced or taken away from ecosystems they are apart of...things drastically change...Like for example the first attempt at animal conservation at Yellowstone, where Americans thought wolves would be a danger to the local sheep and livestock, so they did a systemic annihlation of the species, about 300 or so wolves killed. turned out that the small population of wolves, were keeping elks in check...elks turned out to eat all the grass and their sheer numbers stomped the land into rock. with all the grass eaten and unable to grow back, the park turned into a desert (lmao)

So back to guild wars 2...what happens if you start removing things? Then "the next thing" will usurp what optomizers choose as the optimal way to play the game, and this might be much worse problem then before.

If I had to take a guess : Quickness massively benefits builds that have simple rotations, over those that do not, by a disproportionate amount (because auto-attacks don't benefit from alacrity, where complex builds benefit from both quickness and alacrity)  Therefor, auto-attack like builds, will have DPS drastically lower, then complex build counterparts. So if you were having fun playing a simple rotation, get us-to playing more complicated rotations.

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by Lakemine.3014

[Lakemine.3014]

On 7/25/2023 at 5:42 PM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

The downside is in the philosophy itself, and in the nature of human beings that are optimizers of games based on numbers.

Here's how it goes... A B C D E F G are your options in the game. A is the "the meta" for whatever arbitrary reason, so every player requires you to bring A. You decide that your philosophy will be to "just remove it" so you remove it and now you have B C D E F G... some time passes and now B is "the meta" so every player requires you to bring B. You decide once more to just remove it...so now you have C D E F G...then D E F G...then E F G...then F G... you see where this is going?

The act of "just removing it" turns out to be self destructive: a systemic removal of the games elements, because of players doing an optimization processes on the games state.

The typical naïve response is usually of the form : "but if B C D E F G are equal then is balanced" but the problem is B C D E F G are never equal. Additionally, the complexity of the game is such that there will never be a way to tell how A effects the hierarchy of A B C D E F G. It could very well be that A is what makes CDEFG on equal footing to B....and with the removal, this equal footing disappears.

I'll try to repeat this again. The complexity of Guild Wars 2 is complex in such a way, where elements rely on the existence of other elements, and those elements rely on the existence of other elements and so on... When elements disappear, the changes in these relationships cascade throughout the whole game and it becomes unknowable exactly what will happen as a result of such things. Ultimately it doesn't actually "solve" anything because the process of optimization continues to push on the creation of a hierarchy...and thus the acting of "removing" things as a philosophy is critically flawed. 

If I can make an analogy, it is the same kind of phenomena when animals are introduced or taken away from ecosystems they are apart of...things drastically change...Like for example the first attempt at animal conservation at Yellowstone, where Americans thought wolves would be a danger to the local sheep and livestock, so they did a systemic annihlation of the species, about 300 or so wolves killed. turned out that the small population of wolves, were keeping elks in check...elks turned out to eat all the grass and their sheer numbers stomped the land into rock. with all the grass eaten and unable to grow back, the park turned into a desert (lmao)

So back to guild wars 2...what happens if you start removing things? Then "the next thing" will usurp what optomizers choose as the optimal way to play the game, and this might be much worse problem then before.

If I had to take a guess : Quickness massively benefits builds that have simple rotations, over those that do not, by a disproportionate amount (because auto-attacks don't benefit from alacrity, where complex builds benefit from both quickness and alacrity)  Therefor, auto-attack like builds, will have DPS drastically lower, then complex build counterparts. So if you were having fun playing a simple rotation, get us-to playing more complicated rotations.

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by Lakemine.3014

[Lakemine.3014]

On 7/25/2023 at 5:42 PM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

The downside is in the philosophy itself, and in the nature of human beings that are optimizers of games based on numbers.

Here's how it goes... A B C D E F G are your options in the game. A is the "the meta" for whatever arbitrary reason, so every player requires you to bring A. You decide that your philosophy will be to "just remove it" so you remove it and now you have B C D E F G... some time passes and now B is "the meta" so every player requires you to bring B. You decide once more to just remove it...so now you have C D E F G...then D E F G...then E F G...then F G... you see where this is going?

The act of "just removing it" turns out to be self destructive: a systemic removal of the games elements, because of players doing an optimization processes on the games state.

The typical naïve response is usually of the form : "but if B C D E F G are equal then is balanced" but the problem is B C D E F G are never equal. Additionally, the complexity of the game is such that there will never be a way to tell how A effects the hierarchy of A B C D E F G. It could very well be that A is what makes CDEFG on equal footing to B....and with the removal, this equal footing disappears.

I'll try to repeat this again. The complexity of Guild Wars 2 is complex in such a way, where elements rely on the existence of other elements, and those elements rely on the existence of other elements and so on... When elements disappear, the changes in these relationships cascade throughout the whole game and it becomes unknowable exactly what will happen as a result of such things. Ultimately it doesn't actually "solve" anything because the process of optimization continues to push on the creation of a hierarchy...and thus the acting of "removing" things as a philosophy is critically flawed. 

If I can make an analogy, it is the same kind of phenomena when animals are introduced or taken away from ecosystems they are apart of...things drastically change...Like for example the first attempt at animal conservation at Yellowstone, where Americans thought wolves would be a danger to the local sheep and livestock, so they did a systemic annihlation of the species, about 300 or so wolves killed. turned out that the small population of wolves, were keeping elks in check...elks turned out to eat all the grass and their sheer numbers stomped the land into rock. with all the grass eaten and unable to grow back, the park turned into a desert (lmao)

So back to guild wars 2...what happens if you start removing things? Then "the next thing" will usurp what optomizers choose as the optimal way to play the game, and this might be much worse problem then before.

If I had to take a guess : Quickness massively benefits builds that have simple rotations, over those that do not, by a disproportionate amount (because auto-attacks don't benefit from alacrity, where complex builds benefit from both quickness and alacrity)  Therefor, auto-attack like builds, will have DPS drastically lower, then complex build counterparts. So if you were having fun playing a simple rotation, get us-to playing more complicated rotations.

double post sorrys

Edited August 18, 2023 by Lakemine.3014

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

15 hours ago, Lakemine.3014 said:

double post sorrys

No worries.

15 hours ago, Lakemine.3014 said:

Ahh ok. That makes logical sense. I just can't help the feeling of "Why is it ok then and accepted to be disclusionary, nasty and ruining fun of what specs people want to play because of optimization being pushed by not only the devs but the elitist minded "rulers" of meta drives?" Maybe i'm in a minority? Or I just don't understand how most people think/operate? Just seems very......wrong to have that as the accepted viewpoint and it be not just accepted but pushed on many people. Maybe someday someone can explain it to be that makes sense and doesn't harm people. *shrug*

I feel the same way, and believe me I am on your side. Based off my experiences we are indeed in the minority. 

I  think about it like this. If balance was so easy, like people claim that it is...then how come they just don't do it themselves? If balance was so easy, then why hasn't it been accomplished yet? If balance was so easy, where all it was is just nerfing numbers up and down, or getting rid of things, then there must in fact exist, an operational procedure where the game would be perfectly balanced...and if that was true why hasn't that procedure been done yet? It's been 10 years so why? surely there must be a reason?

When I was thinking about balance maybe 5 years ago...my mindset was similiar to most other people:

"just nerf this, buff that and boom balanced game what could be so hard Anet omegalul!"

But what I realized later, was I cross examined myself and went deeper into this line of thinking. The more I cross-examined, the more I realized how flawed and stupid it was, and it lead me down the incredibly deep rabbit hole of what "a balanced game" would actually mean. This rabbit hole would be so deep that it would actually change my life, and that's not a joke. I wanted REAL answers, from science, math, analysis and logic, and game design to give me something I could actually use.

When I figured out the truth, and got down to the bottom of it...well...it wasn't the truth I think anyone really expects or wants to hear. "Perfect balance is not possible." is already a pretty hard pill to swallow...but it gets worse; "it is the act of trying to balance the game, that also strips it of it's identity." So not can the game never be balanced, it is also this procedure of doing balance changes that takes away diversity...and by proxy creating an even more suitable environment for meta drivers and elitists.

So to put that into context...i had to go around and tell people that balance was not possible, and that the act of balance changes actually make the game worse. This is not an argument that screams "Ya I agree with you." And people will go to great lengths to ignore math, science and logic, to dismiss it...mostly of the form "This is a game, math, science and logic are not part of games therefor argument invalid."

And so, this is the ironic fate of guild wars 2...destined to balance itself until all the fun and diversity has been squeezed out it. Quickness and Alacrity are funnily enough a product of this exact issue...it's a problem right now, because of the act of trying to "balance" the game. 

If your interested in just knowing more, both about removals, additions and other balance operations, I left this comment around two years ago, where I derive what solutions work, and which wouldn't. Just be aware...the truth is often not what people expect or hope for...but if you really think about why it is the way it is, it's a beautiful thing none the less.

 

 

 

[Lord Darghaz.2314]

On 8/18/2023 at 10:55 PM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

If your interested in just knowing more, both about removals, additions and other balance operations, I left this comment around two years ago, where I derive what solutions work, and which wouldn't. Just be aware...the truth is often not what people expect or hope for...but if you really think about why it is the way it is, it's a beautiful thing none the less.

Interesting thoughts! Achieving perfect balance is indeed a questionable goal.
However, im not a fan of mixing up concepts like balance and diversity across the (scientific) domains, even though there may be some intersections.
Speaking of the game domain, balance and class identity are not necessarily contrary to each other.
For example, class identity is influenced by visual elements such as effects and animations, but these factors are not really important on the balancing side.
In other words: the balance affecting terms are only a subset of the class identity.

[Riba.3271]

Quickness and alac are fine by themselves. They could add skill expression to a game if you timed them with other skills.

But not if they have 100% uptime. It becomes unskilled and build limiting factor then. They need to make stronger boons something you can only apply momentarily to others. In general they also need to reduce boon duration Concentration stat gives. You shouldn't have perma protection, 25 might and stability, but use them at suitable situations.

Like you don't see much boon duration in sPvP so saving boons to suitable situations is a big deal. In PvE/WvW this isn't true anymore since all boons last long enough to get reapplied again with most supports having around 60% extra boon duration.

[Arya Whitefire.8423]

If you want to bust the meta, it might be a better approach to measure popularity as much or more than combat effectiveness.

I have this dream in my head of a game where builds are monitored in real time, any time a build is found that is too effective or too popular it is instantly (on the order of minutes to hours), nerfed into the ground.  In theory this would remove the incentive to publicize good builds, and all but destroy the concept of meta.  If it were working the way I envisage it should work, then the best players would be able to eeek out just a bit of advantage by fully understanding the build space, and choosing builds that are just a tad better than the median.  But then they would always live in fear that the build they found would leak, so they'd keep it to themselves, or just a few friends.

[Kalthea.4326]

I've been an advocate for removing Alacrity and Quickness for many years now. A lot of folks disagree with that viewpoint, and they're free to hold their opinions. But I'd rather play the class because it's fun, and no feel forced into one direction on that class just because Alacrity and Quickness are so powerful that not having them is an active hindrance. The classes themselves should be powerful enough to compensate for the removal of boons.

[toorichforyou.6743]

On 7/19/2023 at 12:49 PM, Peter.3901 said:

Anet, seriously, your balancing team is a disaster, tons of feedbacks and you just do the oposite every update, we got that you just can't deal with balancing, so stop that, please.

im surprised forum moderator. 1337 hasnt banned you yet for talking about the balance team.