Balance Implications of new weapon mastery

[GeraldBC.4927]

If elite spec weapons are to be made accessible from within core classes and other elite specs, then this means that A LOT of tuning on all specs needs to be made, or else every class will effectively be reduced to a single elite spec. I will explain.

Obviously, different elite specs within the same class are not identical to one another. Some have stronger utilities than others or stronger profession mechanics and others have weaker utilities and profession mechanics, but make up for it with having a stronger weapon attached. But if every elite spec can access the weapons attached to other elite specs, every 'correct' build will simply involve combining the elite spec with the strongest utilities/elites/healskills and profession mechanics with the strongest weapon they can find in another elite spec.

An example that comes to mind is vindicator VS herald. The vindicator's unique jumps and legend are overall weaker than the herald's traits and abilities, but he compensates for that by having a strong weapon with the greatsword. But if every spec can access greatswords, every power revenant is basically forced to combine herald with the vindicator's greatsword and both other specs as well as any builds associated are effectively removed from the endgame. 

This issue will play out with other classes as well, but it can be countered by balancing out the specs themselves with each other directly, rather than the effective sum of each spec with its associated weapon. For the revenant, that might mean giving the vindicator stronger jumps or buffing the alliance stance skills. Or it could mean making the scrapper's gyros stronger.

Edited August 14, 2023 by GeraldBC.4927

[Fueki.4753]

There have been unreasonably big disparities between many things in the game for years now.

I doubt they are going to care too much about the Elite Specialization weapons over-performing on other specializations.

I assume the most they'd do is slap a bit more boon generation on the non-Warrior specializations that suffer the most from it.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Dadnir.5038]

I think you're needlessly worried, from my point of view, the impact of the still futur "weapon mastery" will likely be inferior to the refont of the runes system. There are so many 6th rune effects buried under poor statset... It will most likely lead some "relics" to be disabled quickly after release.

[Jijimuge.4675]

I think you're right, @GeraldBC.4927, and I agree about the remedy re having classes (rather than class plus weapon) balanced with each other.

I'm not sure that each it will make usage of weapons quite as uniform as you imply - as long as each weapon still serves a unique function and its role isn't entirely taken over by another weapon, I'd hope there would still be use cases (even if marginal) for most weapons.

In the short term, I think this will require additional work from the Anet balance team.  That may not be a bad thing, however, if it gets poorly designed specs or weapons a second look (e.g. catalyst and others IMO)

In the longer term, it could make it possible to add elite specs with less work - if one doesn't need to add a set of weapon skills as well, adding a new spec is less work than it might otherwise be.  I'm not saying that Anet do plan to add new specs, but this would be a good way to make it easier in future if they plan to.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Jijimuge.4675
typo

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

On 8/14/2023 at 2:40 AM, GeraldBC.4927 said:

An example that comes to mind is vindicator VS herald. The vindicator's unique jumps and legend are overall weaker than the herald's traits and abilities,

The misconception you have, is rooted in this sentence.

The fact that you can easily compare the strengths and weaknesses of these options is the actual problem...it's no different no matter what options you are choosing from, whether they are skills, weapons, traits or classes wholesale. In a game that is based on numbers, and with humans being optimizers, if the effects of things could be compared so easily...then no matter what the choices are, it will always boil down to everyone choosing the same things if they all have the same goals.

These options being comparable in a way where you can make equivalence statements like this, means that the options are "trivial" or not different enough...

Just imagine I gave you these 4 options:

Option A : You get $500

Options B : You get $5000

Option C : You get $50,000

Option D : You get $500,000. 

See how trivial this is? It has nothing to do with the set of options you were given...it has to do with the fact that you could actually compare these options in a way that is trivial. In all situations, if having a lot of money is your goal... then Option D is just the meta. Change the word "money" with "DPS" and you now have guild wars 2 in a nutshell.

You have to understand that choice, is an illusion of complexity. The reason you believe you have free-will, is because you think there is a reason why this thing might be better than that thing for XYZ reasons that you can only conjecture. If you had all the information, then you could make the obvious best choice...but in the world of things that are complex, you don't have all the information. It's this property...of not knowing everything...the inability to truly compare two or more things, that makes choices non-trivial and actually meaningful.

The solution to your problem is again, not in the presentation of choices (with which the world gives you an infinite number of those) but the fact that you can compare them trivially. In a game defined by simple addition and subtraction problems like gw2...get us-to your choices being meaningless. The only way you will ever stop this issue, is with an analysis of the game's mechanics and making choices undecidable.  

Edited September 2, 2023 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Raarsi.6798]

Don't worry, I'm sure Anet will do damage control after some things are pointed out.

Maybe.

Probably.

-insert mad cackling in D/D berserker here-

[Buran.3796]

15 hours ago, GeraldBC.4927 said:

An example that comes to mind is vindicator VS herald. The vindicator's unique jumps and legend are overall weaker than the herald's traits and abilities, but he compensates for that by having a strong weapon with the greatsword. But if every spec can access greatswords, every power revenant is basically forced to combine herald with the vindicator's greatsword and both other specs as well as any builds associated are effectively removed from the endgame. 

This issue will play out with other classes as well, but it can be countered by balancing out the specs themselves with each other directly, rather than the effective sum of each spec with its associated weapon. For the revenant, that might mean giving the vindicator stronger jumps or buffing the alliance stance skills. Or it could mean making the scrapper's gyros stronger.

   Herald is way stronger at Instanced PvE than Vindicator, and getting the greatsword would probably make it even better. But that is niche, unsupported dead content.

   On the other hand, Vindicator is way stronger at soloing Open World PvE than Herald and the short bow will probably wide the gap, and that's what most of the players do: play PvE alone and occasionally join some peers at some events.

[GeraldBC.4927]

5 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

The fact that you can easily compare the strengths and weaknesses of these options is the actual problem...it's no different no matter what options you are choosing from, whether they are skills, weapons, traits or classes wholesale. In a game that is based on numbers, and with humans being optimizers, if the effects of things could be compared so easily...then no matter what the choices are, it will always boil down to everyone choosing the same things if they all have the same goals.

You are making the fundamental error of letting 'perfect' become the enemy of 'good'.

While making all builds and specs 100% equivalent numerically may be impossible, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to approximate it. What is possible is to even out the effectiveness of different specs and builds sufficiently that players at least have the option to choose between them in a social setting. To stick with the vindicator vs herald example, the absolute benchmark of a power herald may be higher than that of a vindicator, but they are still close enough that people won't just kick you for playing vindicator instead. 

If the differences between different specs and builds are too vast, the weaker variants will just be gatekept out of existence. That is the exact thing you'll want to avoid. At that point, you may as well call it quits on balancing between builds and simply make presets that don't have any trait or gearing choices. 

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

11 minutes ago, GeraldBC.4927 said:

You are making the fundamental error of letting 'perfect' become the enemy of 'good'.

While making all builds and specs 100% equivalent numerically may be impossible, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to approximate it.  What is possible is to even out the effectiveness of different specs and builds sufficiently that players at least have the option to choose between them in a social setting. To stick with the vindicator vs herald example, the absolute benchmark of a power herald may be higher than that of a vindicator, but they are still close enough that people won't just kick you for playing vindicator instead.

If the differences between different specs and builds are too vast, the weaker variants will just be gatekept out of existence. That is the exact thing you'll want to avoid. At that point, you may as well call it quits on balancing between builds and simply make presets that don't have any trait or gearing choices.  

I don't think you fully understood what I said so instead I'm just going to dismantle your OP :

The highest DPS class on GW2 exists...it's been "parametrized" already as Condition Holosmith according to Snowcrows; 44,162 DPS at this current point in history. According to the argument set up in your OP, all players should be playing this Condition Holosmith build, making all other choices in the game irrelevant. Forget Vindicator or Harbinger...or whether they use greatsword or sword or whatever, why bother playing those classes, and why bother being given those choices when you could just play Condition Holosmith? Obviously, your logic chooses to ignore this fact and instead select in a superficial sense that class distinctions are somehow more important than then the skills that actually make up the classes, and you choose weapon choices as the scape goat for your argument.

And so, the answer to your argument is simple given the premise of your OP. I'll quote you again just so you can remember:

If elite spec weapons are to be made accessible from within core classes and other elite specs, then this means that A LOT of tuning on all specs needs to be made, or else every class will effectively be reduced to a single elite spec. 

That elite spec is condition Holo-smith. why? Because it does the highest Damage according to the argument...Every other answer you think you could give to that proposition, would in fact be false... You say Herald with Greatsword? I say Condi Holosmith...you say Berserker with two pistols? I say Condi Holosmith...You say literally anything, I will say "Condi Holosmith"

The purpose of this is to show why the presentation of your argument is flawed and superficial...that you are ignoring part of your own logic, to choose a case in which that would support your proposition... "well instead of choosing between classes, I'll just choose specs within a class" and therefor you can create a scapegoat to a particular weapon so that it can fit your argument. If you are gonna setup a logic, follow your logic all the way through, not just half way...you would have came down to the obvious conclusion that if you follow your logic, "everyone should be playing condi holosmith" which is not a full, true reflection of the game state therefor the argument you are deriving from the logic would also not be a true reflection of the game state either. 

 

[GeraldBC.4927]

8 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

That elite spec is condition Holo-smith. why? Because it does the highest Damage

You didn't even read the post you're replying to. 

Right now, the different classes and specs are close enough that one can choose between different classes and specs without social repercussions. This includes condi holosmith. You can choose based on personal preference, because the differences aren't so vast that they disrupt the gameplay. Barely anyone plays holosmith in general, not to mention condi holosmith. But if say, the game's balancing was so out of wack that condi holosmith benches 70k dps and everything else 20k, everyone would be forced to play condi holosmith against their will. That is a failed state for balancing, even a less exaggerated case would be. 

Nothing I said in the OP or the post you replied to, is false. 

[draxynnic.3719]

Simply comparing DPS really doesn't tell the whole story. Condi holo benches highly against the golem, but it's a difficult, high-intensity, and unforgiving rotation which brings very little utility. It's a build that needs to have a high DPS when used perfectly and in ideal circumstances so it's still competitive when not used perfectly or when the boss gets to have a say on whether you get to pull off that perfect rotation.

That said, most professions have different functions across their elite specialisations such that they'd all still have strong use cases when other weapons are available - the worst case scenario in most cases isn't that elite specialisations get dropped, it's that they end up all using the same weapons. There are a few cases, though, where the weapon is most of the identity of the elite specialisation, and losing those monopolies might be detrimental to those specific specialisations.

[Obtena.7952]

Too much theoretical here with little value. I don't see the scenario the OP describes coming to reality because the especs are unique enough to retain their identity and play value, regardless of what weapons they access. 

It's pretty obvious how Anet will handle overperformances that might pop up in practical terms. We will just see the typical nerfings on things that 'spike' Anet's usage meters too hard for them. 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Leo G.4501]

5 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Too much theoretical here with little value. I don't see the scenario the OP describes coming to reality because the especs are unique enough to retain their identity and play value, regardless of what weapons they access. 

It's pretty obvious how Anet will handle overperformances that might pop up in practical terms. We will just see the typical nerfings on things that 'spike' Anet's usage meters too hard for them. 

You underestimate the willful ignorance of the playerbase to homogenize out any unique styles.

A current example could be Bladesworn on Warrior. A lot of warriors hate the spec, its flaws and limitations and overcompensating heals/blocks. Many dislike having to build flow AND charges to use Dragon Trigger, still many more dislike being locked in place while building the charges. So what do they want? To let you move/dodge in Dragon Trigger and get rid of flow among other monumental changes that basically completely alters the spec BACK to basic Warrior.

They did similar with Mirage's dodges. You started out with a strong evade but you had a restrictive amount of endurance....then they removed the restrictive endurance part and reduced effectiveness of it further.

You can go through the history of a lot of unique espec features that that have been consistently filed down to be mostly aesthetics and less unique.

I'm not particularly in agreement with the OP, as I feel any balance concerns will be ironed out over time. But these solutions will obviously come at a price.

[draxynnic.3719]

7 hours ago, Leo G.4501 said:

They did similar with Mirage's dodges. You started out with a strong evade but you had a restrictive amount of endurance....then they removed the restrictive endurance part and reduced effectiveness of it further.

Are you referring to mirage having one dodge in competitive? Because it didn't start out that way - that was a stopgap because mirage was perceived to be too hard to kill in competitive and one dodge was an ad hoc way of paring that back (and probably tipped the balance too far the other way). PvE mirage never had that, and for good reason.

[Dawdler.8521]

15 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Are you referring to mirage having one dodge in competitive? Because it didn't start out that way - that was a stopgap because mirage was perceived to be too hard to kill in competitive and one dodge was an ad hoc way of paring that back (and probably tipped the balance too far the other way). PvE mirage never had that, and for good reason.

They still got near untouchable competetive builds that vomit so many clones they sometimes have like 5 of them.

Anyway, I dont think the new weapon sets will upset too much for the simple reason that if they where so strong on their own they tip the balance in favor, people would already use their elites anyway.  Though I can imagine willbender with longbow being the new plague.

In fact I can imagine the "old correct" elites getting pissed with the inevitable nerf such weapon combos will get, lol.

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

They still got near untouchable competetive builds that vomit so many clones they sometimes have like 5 of them.

Anyway, I dont think the new weapon sets will upset too much for the simple reason that if they where so strong on their own they tip the balance in favor, people would already use their elites anyway.  Though I can imagine willbender with longbow being the new plague.

In fact I can imagine the "old correct" elites getting pissed with the inevitable nerf such weapon combos will get, lol.

Ehhh. I don't see them that often, and I wasn't particularly concerned when I did. Mesmers in general can be a PITA to kill, but being hard to kill doesn't win matches on its own, especially when Distortion prevents capture point contribution.

I think the main concern is with elite specialisations where the weapon feels like the main feature of the elite specialisation. There aren't a lot of those, but I can think of a couple which might count. The whole 'weapon gets nerfed because of a new combo and that makes it bad for the elite specialisation it was designed for' is another concern - tempest warhorn is probably at a high risk of this given what people were able to do with sword/warhorn weaver during the beta.

[Sweetbread.3678]

Unless they've decided to massively rebalance the entire game along with the SotO launch, I can't imagine this is going to end well. A lot of especs that have their mechanics closely tied to their weapon are probably going to end up being neutered when their specialization weapon winds up massively overperforming on some other spec and needs to be brought in line. It'll probably take years to get the power creep under control, and then years longer to fix the cascading balance issues controlling the power creep has caused.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

13 hours ago, Sweetbread.3678 said:

Unless they've decided to massively rebalance the entire game along with the SotO launch, I can't imagine this is going to end well. A lot of especs that have their mechanics closely tied to their weapon are probably going to end up being neutered when their specialization weapon winds up massively overperforming on some other spec and needs to be brought in line. It'll probably take years to get the power creep under control, and then years longer to fix the cascading balance issues controlling the power creep has caused.

The issue is more complicated than you realize. This is speculation on my part, but the writing is on the wall if you take a moment to look at Anet's recent balancing, and the way they are describing their vision? The fact they're giving Elite spec weapons to core classes? There is no doubt in my mind that Anet plans on stripping everything unique about Elite spec, and give them to core classes in a attempt to give players a diverse arsenal they have no business getting.

As far as I can see? Giving Core spec elite weapons is just the tip of this iceberg for what they have planned. The weapon debacle is one thing. Giving core classes utility skills? That's where kitten will REALLY hit the fan, because there's going to be so much variables, so much more potential of breaking the combat in this game, and I doubt Anet has taken that into consideration. The worst part is, Anet's balancing team is going to have to fix that, and that's going to be a nightmare in of itself.

Again, speculation. but not enough people are seeing the implication of what giving core classes elite spec weapons means for this game, or what it tells you about Anet's vision going forward.

Edited August 17, 2023 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[Ashen.2907]

21 minutes ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

The issue is more complicated than you realize. This is speculation on my part, but the writing is on the wall if you take a moment to look at Anet's recent balancing, and the way they are describing their vision? The fact they're giving Elite spec weapons to core classes? There is no doubt in my mind that Anet plans on stripping everything unique about Elite spec, and give them to core classes in a attempt to give players a diverse arsenal they have no business getting.

As far as I can see? Giving Core spec elite weapons is just the tip of this iceberg for what they have planned. The weapon debacle is one thing. Giving core classes utility skills? That's where kitten will REALLY hit the fan, because there's going to be so much variables, so much more potential of breaking the combat in this game, and I doubt Anet has taken that into consideration. The worst part is, Anet's balancing team is going to have to fix that, and that's going to be a nightmare in of itself.

Again, speculation. but not enough people are seeing the implication of what giving core classes elite spec weapons means for this game, or what it tells you about Anet's vision going forward.

This.

I hope that ANet's balance team fully grasps the Pandora's box they are opening by:

1) decoupling elite spec weapons from the spec they were initially designed for.

2) adding new weapons to each class..

3) separating stats from 6th tier bonuses with the introduction of relics.

....all over the course of a single expansion release schedule.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

39 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

This.

I hope that ANet's balance team fully grasps the Pandora's box they are opening by:

1) decoupling elite spec weapons from the spec they were initially designed for.

2) adding new weapons to each class..

3) separating stats from 6th tier bonuses with the introduction of relics.

....all over the course of a single expansion release schedule.

I disagree. You said it yourself. A lot of the weapons can’t even be fully utilized because they were designed for a particular elite spec. And the elite specs even force you to take the particular weapon over core for the elite spec to work. The design of elite specs choke the game into preset builds and that was for the longest time their balance prerogative: less choices meant “easier balance” which turned out to not be correct and catastrophically screwed this game for the past 10 years.

The Relics will be a breath of fresh air. i can't believe people actually defend wanting to take useless stat+effect combos with their runes. 

Edited August 17, 2023 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Fueki.4753]

27 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

1) decoupling elite spec weapons from the spec they were initially designed for.

2) adding new weapons to each class..

3) separating stats from 6th tier bonuses with the introduction of relics.

To me, these changes feel like a direct admission that they don't care for any resemblance of balance, which their profession changes have implied for years now.

[Sweetbread.3678]

35 minutes ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

As far as I can see? Giving Core spec elite weapons is just the tip of this iceberg for what they have planned. The weapon debacle is one thing. Giving core classes utility skills? That's where kitten will REALLY hit the fan, because there's going to be so much variables, so much more potential of breaking the combat in this game, and I doubt Anet has taken that into consideration. The worst part is, Anet's balancing team is going to have to fix that, and that's going to be a nightmare in of itself.

The way they talk about especs I could definitely see this happening. Like I get that making a new unique playstyle/weapon for each class every expansion was a lot to individually balance and design even before the move to a yearly expac model, but I really don't think it's going to be less work to switch to this sort of "everything is core" setup. Limitations and siloing off parts of a classes power exist for a reason, to preserve playstyle identity and make balance easier; having no barriers between weapon/skill use sounds cool in theory, but that's also an exponential increase in potential interactions that will need to be balanced around and it will only get worse every time something new is added. Like I love this game, but I really don't think the balance team has the capability to handle balancing some Path of Exile style system where there's thousands of potential skill interactions when a lot of the time they can't even keep especs that are deliberately partitioned off from one another from going off the rails or homogenizing.

And that's to say nothing about how this game already has an issue where more casual players often have absolutely no idea how to make a functional build, which results in content having to be designed for players doing anywhere between 2k and 40k+ dps. Simultaneously increasing gearing complexity (the likelihood of messing up a build) and adding bunch of power creep at the top-end (the penalty for messing up a build) is going to make that whole situation so much worse. It all just seems like a really myopic change that's going to end up making so much more work for them in the long run.

[Ashen.2907]

8 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

I disagree. You said it yourself. A lot of the weapons can’t even be fully utilized because they were designed for a particular elite spec. And the elite specs even force you to take the particular weapon over core for the elite spec to work. The design of elite specs choke the game into preset builds and that was for the longest time their balance prerogative: less choices meant “easier balance” which turned out to not be correct and catastrophically screwed this game for the past 10 years.

Yes weapons being tied to elite specs narrowed the options, but that means fewer variables to deal with during the balancing process. The decoupling of weapons from elite specs adds more variqbles to the equation. The relic addition adds even more. In general the more variables in an equation the more difficult it is to solve.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

2 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Yes weapons being tied to elite specs narrowed the options, but that means fewer variables to deal with during the balancing process. The decoupling of weapons from elite specs adds more variqbles to the equation. The relic addition adds even more. In general the more variables in an equation the more difficult it is to solve.

That's where you got it backwards, and it relays to the first comment i put on this thread. "Solving" the game is not what you actually want, especially not by the devs. You want the game to be explored and preferably, skills would be designed to be fundamentally unsolvable (undecidable). A game being "solved" is how you get meta gaming and homogeneity of the game state. 

It's a very human-centric notion to think that the world needs to be "solved" or that perfection is somehow attainable (For anyone that watched Guardians of the Galaxy 3, that's what aiming for perfection leads you). Being someone who has studied physics and mathematics for like 10 years now is i'm telling you right now, that objectivity is not real, math is arbitrary, and that solvability is not how the natural world works.

The natural world is nothing but unsolvable variables. It's the reason why you get to keep the illusion of free will...because you don't get to access all the answers. What is the point of playing a game, in which the developers have already solved the game for you? Already decided what build you should play and how to play it?

[Ashen.2907]

11 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

That's where you got it backwards, and it relays to the first comment i put on this thread. "Solving" the game is not what you actually want, especially not by the devs. You want the game to be explored and preferably, skills would be designed to be fundamentally unsolvable (undecidable). A game being "solved" is how you get meta gaming and homogeneity of the game state. 

It's a very human-centric notion to think that the world needs to be "solved" or that perfection is somehow attainable (For anyone that watched Guardians of the Galaxy 3, that's what aiming for perfection leads you). Being someone who has studied physics and mathematics for like 10 years now is i'm telling you right now, that objectivity is not real, math is arbitrary, and that solvability is not how the natural world works.

The natural world is nothing but unsolvable variables. It's the reason why you get to keep the illusion of free will...because you don't get to access all the answers. What is the point of playing a game, in which the developers have already solved the game for you? Already decided what build you should play and how to play it?

I dont have it backwards because I like the idea of more variables to play with. I enjoy build craft. My favorite approach to gameplay is to figure things out for myself.

My original comment was specifically about the difficulty of balance that ANet will face, and they will attempt to address it, they will spend resources on it, they will anger paying customers with their efforts, with the addition of so many more variables and permutations.

 

Now, as to the rest of it, we are talking about an artificial world created by and for humans so human centric reasoning is the ideal and there is a huge difference between aiming for good and aiming for perfect. Perfect  balance would mean everyone playing the exact same build with only cosmetics/animations differentiating them. Ive seen no one ask for that here.