Anet *HAS* to start considering non-damage related power budget when balancing DPS

[Mixchimmer.7230]

Copying & Pasting this write-up I posted to reddit for potential visibility to anet teams:

 

The recent balance patch has left a lot of people frustrated, myself included. Between the heavy-handed nerfs to DPS Deadeye, the new Fractal CM being pretty much designed around everyone being ranged, and Condi Virtuoso getting yet another (albeit small) buff, it's really highlighted a problem with the way Anet is currently balancing.

Back when CMC and the balance team did their stream around the philosophy of their balance approach, they mentioned that they want to consider total "Power Budget" when tweaking the values of skills, traits, etc. Meaning, the total gameplay value provided by any given skill or trait. Aspects that could be considered part of a 'Power Budget' include but are not limited to:

• Damage
• Ranged/Melee
• Casting Time
• After Cast
• Animation Lock
• Boons Provided
• Boon Durations
• Built-in Mobility
• Cleave/Single Target
• Boon Application Radius
• Cooldown / Initiative / Energy Cost
• Survivability

Note - I'm not saying that all of these ARE and/or SHOULD be part of the power budget. I'm saying they could be. Balancing around all of these different factors is no easy task. It would be difficult to come up with an objective or quantitative way to evaluate each of these factors. It can never be an exact science. The problem, however; is that it seems like the only consideration being given to balancing skills, is exclusively around the Damage aspect of the game, and not any of the other factors listed above.

Let's go through some examples.

DISCLAIMER: I am not here to say that 'X factor of Y skill should worth Z DPS' when discussing power budget - I'd leave the fine tuning to the balance team. My point here is to only illustrate that other factors besides DPS must be considered.

With that out of the way, let's list some qualities of a few specs and see if we can identify any 'Power Budget' disparities. It's important for this analysis to take some builds that are more or less within a short range of each other. After the Deadeye nerfs, Dagger/Dagger DPS deadeye is going to bench around the 41k range - so pretty much around a power reaper, and the Condi Virt, so:

Condi Virtuoso * Almost Full Ranged (DPS Gain if in melee for Bladeturn) * All Skills Pierce/cleave * Has access to Distortion * Medium Health Pool * Has some sustain without an opportunity cost * Has a relatively easy rotation * Has access to all of the core Mesmer Utility for minimal DPS loss.

Dagger/Dagger DPS Deadeye * Requires full melee * Little to no cleave * Lowest Health Pool * Small Passive sustain if bringing signet of malice * Requires precise management of initiative * Requires consistent on-demand access to stealth * Rotation can be ruined by encounter applied revealed * Access to Great Break Bar Damage

Power Reaper * Requires full melee * Very good cleave * Largest Health Pool * Second Health Bar * Self-Quickness * Requires management of shroud cooldowns * Access to core necro utility

There are probably more factors I could list, but I think this list at least allows me to get to the point. Why can a ranged build (Condi Virt) do the same amount of damage as these other builds? When we think through the power budget, I suppose you could make an argument that the second health bar on Reaper compensates for the fact that they're melee - but with encounter design like Silent surf it's CLEAR that the power budget assigned to being ranged is currently being VASTLY under considered.

Why is DPS Deadeye in the same range as these other builds? It has no cleave and has a very limiting rotation. Does the access to good breakbar damage make up the difference in power budget?

I'm not going to make any specific prescriptions on where DPS of a certain build should end up - but I think the fact that all 3 of these builds are going to pretty much be in the same range is telling that only DPS is really being considered as part of the power budget. There are probably other countless comparisons you can do like this to show that the way they're balancing around other builds is way off.

Like others have mentioned. There needs to be a ranged tax - but further, there needs to be consideration for other additional non-damage related factors or limitations placed on some builds but not on others.

Currently it seems like this isn't being considered whatsoever.

TL;DR: Nerf Condi Virt, lul.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

I made a comment on another thread a long time ago that explains why things like power budgets don’t work because of the failure to make true equivalence statements between different mechanics. You’d probably be interested in hearing why :

For example

Option A: 100 radius = 6000 damage

Option B 600 radius =  1000 damage

the above is a reasonable equivalence statement made between two different mechanisms…at surface level it looks like it “makes sense” because the distribution of numbers are evenly distributed…but the problem is that it is an illusion…a fallacy…why? Because things like radius mean something different than damage… their numerical relations are not the same and therefore one cant make a sound equivalence statement.

it turns out this failure to make an equivalence statement is not only a fallacy it is fundamentally impossible to do so…in essence, There’s no procedure one can do to prove that the above equivalence is true or not. 

More intuitively just think about the situation…Option A with 100 radius we know is awful in PVP… it’s terrible…no matter how much damage it does it will almost always miss, where as Option B would be land all the time, and be quiet good there. However Option A in PvE? That 100 radius doesn’t matter as much at all compared to the 6000 damage it can do and Option B is probably so low damage that it is a waste of time to use it right... And all those aspects change depending on what they are...if it's healing instead of damage? Completly opposite situation in PVE (since your targets are now players)...i can go on and on but you see…The meaning of mechanics like radius and what not, comes from us (the players) and not numbers themselves.

You would also think this is the worst part but it’s not.  Power budgets function off the idea you can even parametrize the mechanisms into numbers to begin with…but what happens when you have things that can’t be parametrized with numbers at all? 

For example say you have 2 skills that provide these effects

Skill 1: 5s stability

Skill 2: 2s immobilization

these two simple mechanics are so abstract and different from one another, how can one even parametrize them to even attempt comparing them or making an equivalence statement without it just being a pure guess? If one can’t even parametrize a single mechanic how can one even parametrize something as abstract as “survivability” without it being completely subjective. If we can't parametrize even a single mechanic first, then forget going for the whole game.

so what I’m saying towards your post…is not only is it not an easy task, it’s a fundamentally impossible task to do a power budget especially of a game as complex as guild wars 2. The problem lies itself in the nature numbers : they are arbitrary, relative human constructs, and numbers don’t give the underlying ontology it’s meaning due to this arbitrary nature….the ontology is what gives ontology meaning and we simply uses numbers to describe it, where it can be described… which arguably is not a very large space…because ultimately the underlying meaning of stuff is also arbitrary (the nature of behaviors and relationships between things, and us the human players choosing how to explore it). 
 

under that explanation it becomes obvious what is happening: there is no “state” of the game where it will be perfectly balanced, nor could we know if it was…its an illusion and what people should be chasing is something more subjective: fun, possibilities…different interactions and behaviors… almost like real life right…

if you want to learn more about the nature of numbers and why their so arbitrary…watch the first 20 minutes of this lecture. It’s actually really kitten fascinating as a subject in and of itself, it’s worth your time.

 

Edited July 20, 2023 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Leo G.4501]

2 hours ago, Mixchimmer.7230 said:

Copying & Pasting this write-up I posted to reddit for potential visibility to anet teams:

 

The recent balance patch has left a lot of people frustrated, myself included. Between the heavy-handed nerfs to DPS Deadeye, the new Fractal CM being pretty much designed around everyone being ranged, and Condi Virtuoso getting yet another (albeit small) buff, it's really highlighted a problem with the way Anet is currently balancing.

Back when CMC and the balance team did their stream around the philosophy of their balance approach, they mentioned that they want to consider total "Power Budget" when tweaking the values of skills, traits, etc. Meaning, the total gameplay value provided by any given skill or trait. Aspects that could be considered part of a 'Power Budget' include but are not limited to:

• Damage
• Ranged/Melee
• Casting Time
• After Cast
• Animation Lock
• Boons Provided
• Boon Durations
• Built-in Mobility
• Cleave/Single Target
• Boon Application Radius
• Cooldown / Initiative / Energy Cost
• Survivability

Note - I'm not saying that all of these ARE and/or SHOULD be part of the power budget. I'm saying they could be. Balancing around all of these different factors is no easy task. It would be difficult to come up with an objective or quantitative way to evaluate each of these factors. It can never be an exact science. The problem, however; is that it seems like the only consideration being given to balancing skills, is exclusively around the Damage aspect of the game, and not any of the other factors listed above.

Let's go through some examples.

DISCLAIMER: I am not here to say that 'X factor of Y skill should worth Z DPS' when discussing power budget - I'd leave the fine tuning to the balance team. My point here is to only illustrate that other factors besides DPS must be considered.

With that out of the way, let's list some qualities of a few specs and see if we can identify any 'Power Budget' disparities. It's important for this analysis to take some builds that are more or less within a short range of each other. After the Deadeye nerfs, Dagger/Dagger DPS deadeye is going to bench around the 41k range - so pretty much around a power reaper, and the Condi Virt, so:

Condi Virtuoso * Almost Full Ranged (DPS Gain if in melee for Bladeturn) * All Skills Pierce/cleave * Has access to Distortion * Medium Health Pool * Has some sustain without an opportunity cost * Has a relatively easy rotation * Has access to all of the core Mesmer Utility for minimal DPS loss.

Dagger/Dagger DPS Deadeye * Requires full melee * Little to no cleave * Lowest Health Pool * Small Passive sustain if bringing signet of malice * Requires precise management of initiative * Requires consistent on-demand access to stealth * Rotation can be ruined by encounter applied revealed * Access to Great Break Bar Damage

Power Reaper * Requires full melee * Very good cleave * Largest Health Pool * Second Health Bar * Self-Quickness * Requires management of shroud cooldowns * Access to core necro utility

There are probably more factors I could list, but I think this list at least allows me to get to the point. Why can a ranged build (Condi Virt) do the same amount of damage as these other builds? When we think through the power budget, I suppose you could make an argument that the second health bar on Reaper compensates for the fact that they're melee - but with encounter design like Silent surf it's CLEAR that the power budget assigned to being ranged is currently being VASTLY under considered.

Why is DPS Deadeye in the same range as these other builds? It has no cleave and has a very limiting rotation. Does the access to good breakbar damage make up the difference in power budget?

I'm not going to make any specific prescriptions on where DPS of a certain build should end up - but I think the fact that all 3 of these builds are going to pretty much be in the same range is telling that only DPS is really being considered as part of the power budget. There are probably other countless comparisons you can do like this to show that the way they're balancing around other builds is way off.

Like others have mentioned. There needs to be a ranged tax - but further, there needs to be consideration for other additional non-damage related factors or limitations placed on some builds but not on others.

Currently it seems like this isn't being considered whatsoever.

TL;DR: Nerf Condi Virt, lul.

I've not played condi Virtuoso, only power but eventually will get around to playing some of my light characters. That being said, I've no vantage to compare if the condi version is overperforming and needs to be toned down.

But I don't think ranged, out of any other context, is a solid direction to start comparing. You have to start taking in variables like projectile hate and effective range. Also, class effectiveness within profession (how much of Mesmer kit is ranged and how does virtuoso change that)... Like, let's just take the values of Virtuoso but apply them to warrior's kit perhaps with sustain nerfs to keep it equivalent. That would be far more valuable for war because that don't have the best ranged spec but would devalue the melee builds.

It's a hard prospect to attempt to form a budget to balance by and, imo, runs the risk of watering down a lot of mechanics in terms of what skills do. Rather than a power budget overall, perhaps start with intra-profession budgeting prospects first then compare how those budgets differ from profession to profession. 

[XenesisII.1540]

Power budget, built in mobility, lmao clearly they weren't thinking about any of that when they made Willbender on Guardian class.

One of the balance devs better go take a look at other mmos and get a crash course on trinity class balance. They clearly have no budget or limitations to what a spec should have access to or what it can do.

[Endaris.1452]

@Mixchimmer.7230 Please edit your post to remove formatting on your text. GW2 forums specifically offer to paste without formatting by holding Ctrl and rightclicking into the textbox.

As it is now, your post is unreadable on dark theme thanks to black text on black background.

[Bookah pls.9352]

OP *HAS* to start considering dark mode when making forum posts with copy paste text 😠

 

I agree with the gist of your post but just wanna point out that reaper having self quickness (important to note it's only while in shroud as well, it's not like its 100% uptime) is completely irrelevant in content where dps matters as that's being provided by an actual quickness support, doesn't have access to utility if it's to reach the benchmarks you're judging this on while not having access to any utility at all during their dps phases and most importantly is the only class that actively loses damage uptime for taking damage. Like it's not as bad as it used to be but there's a reason only people who really dislike you would recommend playing reaper on vale guardian.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Bookah pls.9352
we need an angry emote >:(

[Jzaku.9765]

22 hours ago, Endaris.1452 said:

@Mixchimmer.7230 Please edit your post to remove formatting on your text. GW2 forums specifically offer to paste without formatting by holding Ctrl and rightclicking into the textbox.

As it is now, your post is unreadable on dark theme thanks to black text on black background.

Seconding this. Edit your post, copy your entire text and right click > paste as plain text. You are sabotaging your own thread by making it a pain to read. 

That said, I completely agreed with your post reading it on Reddit. It's been obvious for a while that almost every build is balanced to do around the same DPS (e.g., the new target for pure DPS builds recently seems to be ~40k) with absolutely no regard for the non-damage power budget of the build.

The new build Condi Druid is incredibly tanky, cleanses and heals allies as part of it's rotation while doing ~41k DPS with access to all the utility we've known Druid for over the past 8 years its been in the meta.

Then you look at a build like Power Berserker which is doing ~42k DPS with one of the tightest rotations in the game that needs to spam utilities off CD to upkeep their Berserk with a tiny margin of error with almost no utility to speak of and it becomes apparent that the whole Power Budget thing was always a farce. 

Edited July 22, 2023 by Jzaku.9765

[Dadnir.5038]

On 7/20/2023 at 6:16 PM, Mixchimmer.7230 said:

Why is DPS Deadeye in the same range as these other builds?

Probably because you show us a biased perspective on these 3 builds. I don't want to be mean, but a strict rotation won't necessarily be able to squeeze out the full potential of every single tool you have access to in a specific build. A Boss encounter is seldom as peacful as a golem training session and the player is supposed to have enough awareness of both the encounter mechanisms and it's build array of possibility to be able to break out of this strict rotation when needed.

If you look at those build in the vacuum of the rotation while being heavily influenced by your own biased, then yes, DE seem to have it rough in comparison. However, if you look at it objectively while taking every possibility into account, the "power" of each build is close enough to have all 3 builds in the same range.

 

[Carnifex.3275]

On 7/22/2023 at 11:04 AM, Dadnir.5038 said:

Probably because you show us a biased perspective on these 3 builds. I don't want to be mean, but a strict rotation won't necessarily be able to squeeze out the full potential of every single tool you have access to in a specific build. A Boss encounter is seldom as peacful as a golem training session and the player is supposed to have enough awareness of both the encounter mechanisms and it's build array of possibility to be able to break out of this strict rotation when needed.

If you look at those build in the vacuum of the rotation while being heavily influenced by your own biased, then yes, DE seem to have it rough in comparison. However, if you look at it objectively while taking every possibility into account, the "power" of each build is close enough to have all 3 builds in the same range.

 

It's actually the other way around. In the "vacuum" (on golem lets say) these builds might look like they're close to each other. But when you drop these 3 builds into real encounters then you can clearly see whose the winner and whose the loser here. And that's the main problem anet is making. They're just balancing numbers in the vacuum mostly. But they actually need to consider how they are performing in many different aspects (flexibility, cc, boons, range, cleave, sustain, difficulty, how many conditions does it have to meet etcetc), not just how theyre performing on golem. 

Or.. just get a proper dev that actually understands the class and loves playing it. Problem solved. Now we probably have biased individuals that not only dont play the class but might even hate the class, so of course they wont be able to balance it. How can you do your job if you're unqualified for the job? And that's why we get these ridiculous balance patches. 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Carnifex.3275

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, Carnifex.3275 said:

It's actually the other way around. In the "vacuum" (on golem lets say) these builds might look like they're close to each other.

*Sigh* Reading comprehension on my post would be great. Just the sentence alone show me that you didn't even care to read properly what I wrote.

I'll spell it for you: The issue is that players are blindsided by the rotation that they believe they should lock themself into.

The devs don't have a "power budget" for a rotation the players force onto themself, they have a "power budget" for the pool of skills that a profession own. Which mean that if you break away from this self imposed punishment that you call "rotation" there is a wider world in front of you.

[Jzaku.9765]

46 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

*Sigh* Reading comprehension on my post would be great. Just the sentence alone show me that you didn't even care to read properly what I wrote.

I'll spell it for you: The issue is that players are blindsided by the rotation that they believe they should lock themself into.

The devs don't have a "power budget" for a rotation the players force onto themself, they have a "power budget" for the pool of skills that a profession own. Which mean that if you break away from this self imposed punishment that you call "rotation" there is a wider world in front of you.

You paint a fictional world where going "off-script" so to speak is equally available to all specs. Some specs get brutalized for going off-script (dropping stacking buffs, wasting powerful form changes) and others just keep trucking. It's literally part of OP's message relating to the power budget to keep going regardless of what happens.

Moreover, opportunity cost for dipping into your "pool of skills" swings wildly for each spec - and you cannot convince anyone that every class has an equally deep pool in the first place, looping back around into the power budget question. 

[Dadnir.5038]

3 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

You paint a fictional world where going "off-script" so to speak is equally available to all specs. Some specs get brutalized for going off-script (dropping stacking buffs, wasting powerful form changes) and others just keep trucking. It's literally part of OP's message relating to the power budget to keep going regardless of what happens.

Moreover, opportunity cost for dipping into your "pool of skills" swings wildly for each spec - and you cannot convince anyone that every class has an equally deep pool in the first place, looping back around into the power budget question. 

And I'm telling you that the "power budget" isn't limited to the optimal rotation that players force upon themself. Each profession have to sacrifice something to answer a problematic even if this something is different.

If on want to talk about power budget one have to look at the whole power budget of the profession not the limited power budget of a rotation that this person force onto themself.

The devs do not create optimal builds, the devs try to have player making meaningful choices and using a cost opportunity skill within a fight fall totally into what they are balancing toward. Thief is in a unique spot because it's rotation rely heavily on the initiative system that allow him to have rotation involving very few individual skills. On another hand, other profession that do not have access to the initiative system actually have to make the best of all the slotted skills if they want to achieve something.

The whole thread paint D/D DE into a sorry state, smartly pushing the reader toward empathy by using conditions like "require consitent on demand stealth access" like it's a difficult task for a D/D thief or "rotation can be ruined by encounter applied reveal". While brushing off over the fact that, for example, reaper's rotation can be just as easily be ruined by a big hit onto it's shroud or it's damage reduced heavily by a lack of chill uptime on the boss. Virtuoso is sold to the reader with an "access to distorsion" (while will cost him it's blade charges) while D/D DE access to a spamable evade skill is brushed off under the cover of "cost opportunity"... etc.

Do I really have to point out all the the flaw of the argumentation or is this snipet enough to show you that bias are leading us nowhere when talking about the "power budget" of 3 dps builds?

[Jski.6180]

Dose base hp and armor factor into these power budget balancing? We do have an game where only armor / hp very from classes not power and say healing power.

[Mell.4873]

I can't read it either but this is what he said. 

 

OP post:

The recent balance patch has left a lot of people frustrated, myself included. Between the heavy-handed nerfs to DPS Deadeye, the new Fractal CM being pretty much designed around everyone being ranged, and Condi Virtuoso getting yet another (albeit small) buff, it's really highlighted a problem with the way Anet is currently balancing.

 

Back when CMC and the balance team did their stream around the philosophy of their balance approach, they mentioned that they want to consider total "Power Budget" when tweaking the values of skills, traits, etc. Meaning, the total gameplay value provided by any given skill or trait. Aspects that could be considered part of a 'Power Budget' include but are not limited to:

 

Damage

Ranged/Melee

Casting Time

After Cast

Animation Lock

Boons Provided

Boon Durations

Built-in Mobility

Cleave/Single Target

Boon Application Radius

Cooldown / Initiative / Energy Cost

Survivability

Note - I'm not saying that all of these ARE and/or SHOULD be part of the power budget. I'm saying they could be. Balancing around all of these different factors is no easy task. It would be difficult to come up with an objective or quantitative way to evaluate each of these factors. It can never be an exact science. The problem, however; is that it seems like the only consideration being given to balancing skills, is exclusively around the Damage aspect of the game, and not any of the other factors listed above.

 

Let's go through some examples.

 

DISCLAIMER: I am not here to say that 'X factor of Y skill should worth Z DPS' when discussing power budget - I'd leave the fine tuning to the balance team. My point here is to only illustrate that other factors besides DPS must be considered.

 

With that out of the way, let's list some qualities of a few specs and see if we can identify any 'Power Budget' disparities. It's important for this analysis to take some builds that are more or less within a short range of each other. After the Deadeye nerfs, Dagger/Dagger DPS deadeye is going to bench around the 41k range - so pretty much around a power reaper, and the Condi Virt, so:

 

Condi Virtuoso * Almost Full Ranged (DPS Gain if in melee for Bladeturn) * All Skills Pierce/cleave * Has access to Distortion * Medium Health Pool * Has some sustain without an opportunity cost * Has a relatively easy rotation * Has access to all of the core Mesmer Utility for minimal DPS loss.

 

Dagger/Dagger DPS Deadeye * Requires full melee * Little to no cleave * Lowest Health Pool * Small Passive sustain if bringing signet of malice * Requires precise management of initiative * Requires consistent on-demand access to stealth * Rotation can be ruined by encounter applied revealed * Access to Great Break Bar Damage

 

Power Reaper * Requires full melee * Very good cleave * Largest Health Pool * Second Health Bar * Self-Quickness * Requires management of shroud cooldowns * Access to core necro utility

 

There are probably more factors I could list, but I think this list at least allows me to get to the point. Why can a ranged build (Condi Virt) do the same amount of damage as these other builds? When we think through the power budget, I suppose you could make an argument that the second health bar on Reaper compensates for the fact that they're melee - but with encounter design like Silent surf it's CLEAR that the power budget assigned to being ranged is currently being VASTLY under considered.

 

Why is DPS Deadeye in the same range as these other builds? It has no cleave and has a very limiting rotation. Does the access to good breakbar damage make up the difference in power budget?

 

I'm not going to make any specific prescriptions on where DPS of a certain build should end up - but I think the fact that all 3 of these builds are going to pretty much be in the same range is telling that only DPS is really being considered as part of the power budget. There are probably other countless comparisons you can do like this to show that the way they're balancing around other builds is way off.

 

Like others have mentioned. There needs to be a ranged tax - but further, there needs to be consideration for other additional non-damage related factors or limitations placed on some builds but not on others.

 

Currently it seems like this isn't being considered  whatsoever.

 

TL;DR: Nerf Condi Virt, lul.