Power Creep, The game is too easy [Merged]

[Sobx.1758]

5 hours ago, Dondarrion.2748 said:

It's pretty amazing that Sabetha figured out how to make a one-shotting, rotating flamewall - however, one of the most powerful demons has a lesser version of that power. Maybe Sabetha should start a rental service in Nayos to empower demons.

Yeah, that's weird. I'm guessing they're leaving the undodgable wall/s for cm

[Nephalem.8921]

On 10/10/2023 at 6:22 PM, Astralporing.1957 said:

You are right, i overestimated it a bit due to basing it on old post that seems to have messed the math (used full critical damage value for basis of calculation, instead of removing the base 100% first). Still, you are underestimating it as well. Fury alone is around 35% increase if using the +5% trait. And, of course, the effect of both boons does not simply add up, but is multiplicative, which results in an overall ~90% increase for full zerker builds.

Although any traits and effects that increase Power and Ferocity affect this (added power lowers the calculation result, while added ferocity increases it). And, as you noticed, the effects can be better for non-glass builds.

Berserker gear has 2880 power with food. Might gives 750 power. -> 26% gain if your build has 0 condi dmg contribution.

Going from 75% critchance to 100% on for example ele: (2.7*1 / (2.7*0.75+0.25*1)) -1 = 18.7% if  your damage is pure power.

Combined ~50% increase in a pure power scenario which is never the case. Unless you have traits like "20% critchance while under the effect of fury" this number would be lower because most builds have some extra power in traits which lowers the relative might contribution. Reaper and rev gain slightly more from gaining extra power per might.

Alacrity is the weakest dps boon for a power build. It offers ~14-15% on average depending on build. Quickness ~25% depending on build and fury is almost worthless for most condi builds but condi builds benefit more from might.

No idea where you got that 90% number from unless you included traits but why would you include trait when you only mean boons?

[Black Templar.2184]

In my opinion, this much powercreep is ruining the game experience. Sure, for a new player, things might seem hard and challenging enough, but once you get the hang of it, everything becomes so easy. Bosses skipping entire phases or mechanics because of high dps then what's the point? Now it seems like anet is increasing their health pool considerably (the newer bosses) but that's not the way to fix things. I think that when the dps hit 50k/s, things started to get negatively affected. For example, even though i was runnning fractal CMs, we felt like we were constantly engaged in the fight. Whereas now, we're just shutting out brain off, pressing dps buttons, and gg, you just skipped 2 phases and won the fight. Things are not challenging anymore, ads feel like literal ants by getting one shot anywhere, metas lost their value and excitement as they present 0 challenge...

DPS is not the only issue in powercreep! Support roles are getting so over tuned by giving every possible boon in the game CONSTANTLY to the party. That is a problem that results in boons losing their value. With the amount of Aegis, block, prema protection, insane heals etc... players don't have to really engage with the mechanics anymore. For example: boss is channeling an attack... players will just ignore it and keep pumping crazy dps, thinking the support will block it, or heal 10 times over it, so i might just turn my brain off and only think about dps buttons... If you've played gw2 years ago you'll especially know what im talking about. Boons were very important and people had to actually put effort into providing it to the squad while healing too. Things felt challenging for both dps and support players! Aegis or block used to feel so precious, getting at low health made you fear for your life and pump that adrenaline in you, pushing you to engage in mechanics to not die, the healer isn't gonna just save your kitten and heal you back to full health in 3 seconds...

I think you get my point by now lol.

To clarify, i don't wanna turn Gw2 into a dark souls game but i just miss that element of challenge and awareness. I feel like a robot pressing buttons now during encounters, which made me lose interest in the game.

I hope anet takes this into consideration, and i'd love to see what you guys think about it!

[zeyeti.8347]

If you feel like you are in the current position were the game is being way to easy for you , you can make your own challenge , make a lvl79 raid character , play core without any healer , remove piece of stuff , run with only two traitline , try funky builds , do lowman endgame content...

I get and have maybe the same feelings on some stuff , but every mmo goes trough that phase , gw 2 is becoming old and while very dedicated players stay on the game anet needs to bring back new fresh player , and they can do that by making things easier , just look at the last cm they brought CO CM , i think every vet player can agree the fight was super easy compared to KO , or OLC , the only interesting mechanic was the orb to collect to make dagda vulnerable , the rest has already been seen , somebody has the red puddle and kite them away (hands of deimos a bit alike) , numbers (KO) , split phase (matthias and many others), the arrow is quite a bit new , but has basically the same fonction as in normal mode , just instead of a debuff the arrow target get insta killed if not well positionned.

I too would greatly be thrilled by a new htcm strike alike , but i doubt anet is gonna work for a content a very narrow community will work on.

And nerfing numbers while everyone has trained for his 40k bench would only alianete players and beginners who struggle will just scratch their heads on why they have been nerfed.

Adding cm to the already existing raids who have none could help refresh a bit the stuff, will not require a lot of work (but will result in lots of bugs , cause raid code are old ...)

[Ashen.2907]

Power creep is part of why I dont play PvE much any more. Many encounters really are trivial these days.

[LSD.4673]

When they started buffing underutilised weapons last year instead of nerfing overtuned ones, it became pretty obvious they didn't really care about the state of damage output.

Each set of e-specs from each expansion has been more powerful than the last, and the blurred lines of class identity into this "every class can provide" thing has led us to this point. It's a core part of the game, and even if they bothered to dedicate resources they, evidently, don't have to sorting this, the end result would be people not wanting to play. Can you imagine the outrage if you had to time your quick/alac for burst phases? 

This is the way things are and will stay.

[Dawdler.8521]

Right now?

Lol combat has been powercrept since HoT. DPS is now 2-3x higher than it used to be and people still cry for buffs. 4-stat gear has a “modest” 10% or so stats over 3-stat then celestial come in and have 70% more stats than any other gearset and Anet does nothing. Anet threw elite vs core balance out the window. Boons and condi went completely out of control because skills that used to do 1-2 things now do 5 things and can be traited to do 3 more things.

All while Anet was very concerned with specific skills that used to work fine, so that’s why we now have an ELITE skill that does… 1s of stealth. Pulsing. For 2 seconds. 

Edited January 11 by Dawdler.8521

[Cyninja.2954]

5 hours ago, Black Templar.2184 said:

I hope anet takes this into consideration, and i'd love to see what you guys think about it!

Your going to get pretty much 2 responses on this:

1. power creep is fine, game is still hard enough

Pretty much applicable to 80% of this games player base. The crowd which never bothered and still doesn't bother to understand or improve at the game. To this day you can check performance in any open world squad and the any event would complete faster if 70% of the players were removed (due to scaling).

The reality is, a lot of players never bother with "improving" or in many cases have no idea how terrible the are because none of the content they do challenges them, while having the attention span of a one day fly thus not noticing any nuances in the content which they do play.

2. players that actually have conquered "challenging" content

Power creep has been complained about for years by now. The best we got was a bit of scaling back post EoD and Soto, which still resulted in the higher output now versus pre EoD. Competitive modes are absolutely unbalance-able at current power levels for years (though other issues are of bigger concern here).

This group of players basically either quits or just hangs around trying to find new ways to farm content to keep entertained. EoD strikes were nice short term distractions while IBS and SotO strikes are pretty much garbage. The best one can hope for is that power creep is kept low enough to not immediately break everything even more, but do expect to get close to 50k builds with expansion 5. The trend-line is very obvious and clear in that regard.

Maybe once even more content breaks to the extent it becomes unplayable for the majority of players (hello instant completing open world events or metas), the developers hand might get forced.

TL;DR:

Learn to live with power creep and accept the game for what it is, because there is no chance that this will get railed in. The best one can hope for is some sort of status quo, and even that's puffing serious amounts of copium.

Edited January 11 by Cyninja.2954

[sewenewes.4176]

The game could use more power creep, actually. We have a lot of content that is completely abandoned by players so if someone wasn't playing them when they were run regularly they are out of luck. The core world is fairly soloable but the expansions are a hit or miss. Someone will say to this that you just need to call out for help because this is an MMO. Problem is that not only is it not guaranteed that players you currently share a map with will help in sufficient numbers but it's not even guaranteed that your map has enough players at all because layering doesn't seem to work properly and maps are constantly being closed and created with very low numbers. Dungeons could also be made soloable at least on story mode.

I do agree that this power creep shouldn't be done through introducing increasingly broken builds. Maybe give players a buff on underpopulated maps, similar to WvWvW outnumbered?

[Jumpin Lumpix.6108]

they should add some new difficult solo content. Especially more jumping puzzles.  Would be a good way to add difficult content without affecting things like power creep.

Edited January 11 by Jumpin Lumpix.6108

[Sobx.1758]

5 hours ago, sewenewes.4176 said:

The game could use more power creep, actually. We have a lot of content that is completely abandoned by players so if someone wasn't playing them when they were run regularly they are out of luck. The core world is fairly soloable but the expansions are a hit or miss. Someone will say to this that you just need to call out for help because this is an MMO. Problem is that not only is it not guaranteed that players you currently share a map with will help in sufficient numbers but it's not even guaranteed that your map has enough players at all because layering doesn't seem to work properly and maps are constantly being closed and created with very low numbers.

Feels like this should be solved by finding those singular events, maps or whatever and then maybe improving scaling for the lower player number, not by "increasing power creep" throughout the game which affects everything, just because someone said "x map or content is now impossible to do". 😉

Edited January 11 by Sobx.1758

[sewenewes.4176]

3 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Feels like this should be solved by finding those singular events, maps or whatever and then maybe improving scaling for the lower player number, not by "increasing power creep" throughout the game which affects everything, just because someone said "x map or content is now impossible to do". 😉

What's more realistic? Arenanet dedicating time and energy to constantly monitor, evaluate, and adjust events (of which there are hundreds) on a case-by-case basis or nerfing the content across the board like in HoT or like with Soo-Won's fight? The power creep is already a roundabout way to nerf everything but if we had a system that buffs players when the odds are not in their favour the balance team could be a lot more strict and reign in the ever-increasing numbers. They can't do that currently without driving away a significant portion of their players who are already at a disadvantage due to the massive gaps in output between an unskilled, an average, and a skilled player.

There is currently, according to snowcrows, an average of six thousand damage per second difference between the best and the tenth best build in the game and these are all the crème de la crème as far as damage builds go. The average person's gear, talents, and ability to consistently maintain the ideal rotation will have them doing not even half of those numbers. Not to mention that without a group that has dedicated roles the average person will also be missing a lot of buffs.

Edited January 12 by sewenewes.4176

[Sobx.1758]

9 hours ago, sewenewes.4176 said:

What's more realistic? Arenanet dedicating time and energy to constantly monitor, evaluate, and adjust events (of which there are hundreds) on a case-by-case basis or nerfing the content across the board like in HoT or like with Soo-Won's fight?

Ah, I thought we're voicing our wishes about balancing approach here, but if it's about being more realistic then it would be you using lfg/mentor/commander tags to get people for events you want. Beacuse none of the content is really what you described it as in your initial post.

Edited January 12 by Sobx.1758

[sewenewes.4176]

On 1/12/2024 at 12:08 PM, Sobx.1758 said:

using lfg/mentor/commander tags to get people for events you want

You can make groups and have a commander tag (for 150 gold, that is) but if players are not interested in sufficient numbers at the times you are available then you either have to play your desired content without enough people and hope for the power creep to carry you (as is the case currently) or not be able to do them. Which is why I said that if players were given a buff to scale their power relative to how outnumbered they are then developers could pull back on the rapid power creep without dissatisfying a large percentage of people.

An automated buff feels like a more realistic solution than developers being assigned to constantly monitor and adjust individual bits of content when they already struggle with the pace of delivering new content. The ideal solution would of course be the manual adjustment of everything but is it realistic to expect that?

[Astralporing.1957]

7 hours ago, sewenewes.4176 said:

You can make groups and have a commander tag (for 150 gold, that is) but if players are not interested in sufficient numbers at the times you are available then you either have to play your desired content without enough people and hope for the power creep to carry you (as is the case currently) or not be able to do them. Which is why I said that if players were given a buff to scale their power relative to how outnumbered they are then developers could pull back on the rapid power creep without dissatisfying a large percentage of people.

An automated buff feels like a more realistic solution than developers being assigned to constantly monitor and adjust individual bits of content when they already struggle with the pace of delivering new content. The ideal solution would of course be the manual adjustment of everything but is it realistic to expect that?

It's called "event scaling", and it already exists. Granted, it does not work all that well in many cases, but there's no reason why a new system would be any more effective than the old one. And if they'd ever have resources for work on new system for some events, they'd also have them for adjusting scaling on the old system (which would likely require less work than doing something completely new).

In general, power creep is pretty much irrelevant to majority of the players because majority of the players will never make use of it anyway - they will still be running the same bad builds as before (or maybe some new, but still equally bad ones). It is only really visible at the top.

It would be far better for Anet to actually address and remove the primary reasons for that situation (damage multipliers present throughout all the layers of build/gearing/skill system) and then adjust the top level content down accordingly. Massive gap that exists between average and top players has caused numerous problems throughout the years already even when it was smaller, and now that it has actually grown that definitely didn't help anyone.

Edited January 16 by Astralporing.1957

[ronkul.1320]

On 1/16/2024 at 2:38 AM, Astralporing.1957 said:

It's called "event scaling", and it already exists. Granted, it does not work all that well in many cases, but there's no reason why a new system would be any more effective than the old one. And if they'd ever have resources for work on new system for some events, they'd also have them for adjusting scaling on the old system (which would likely require less work than doing something completely new).

In general, power creep is pretty much irrelevant to majority of the players because majority of the players will never make use of it anyway - they will still be running the same bad builds as before (or maybe some new, but still equally bad ones). It is only really visible at the top.

It would be far better for Anet to actually address and remove the primary reasons for that situation (damage multipliers present throughout all the layers of build/gearing/skill system) and then adjust the top level content down accordingly. Massive gap that exists between average and top players has caused numerous problems throughout the years already even when it was smaller, and now that it has actually grown that definitely didn't help anyone.

I would suggest a more horizontal approach with builds where there are less percentage damage or stat modifiers. I think that having a unique effect like how the relic system was created would make traits create a more versatile combat while closing on the gap between damage output between average and top players and maybe reduce the need for a systematic rotation for damage and give a more reactionary and active approach to pve encounters (pve encounters would also have to have more mechanics outside of the enrage/dps check mechanic).

[Infinity.2876]

Game is too easy?: Go play some pvp as a staff weaver or Roller Beatle through tangled depths without crashing.

Game is too hard?: Go join the afk minion mancer necros or the Choya campers in amnoon.

[Shiyo.3578]

On 1/11/2024 at 5:08 AM, zeyeti.8347 said:

If you feel like you are in the current position were the game is being way to easy for you , you can make your own challenge , make a lvl79 raid character , play core without any healer , remove piece of stuff , run with only two traitline , try funky builds , do lowman endgame content...

If you have to do this in a MMO, the developers have failed.

[Astralporing.1957]

18 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

If you have to do this in a MMO, the developers have failed.

No, if you have to do this, they did not. Only if you are a part of a big enough slice of the community would that be an issue.

Ironically, at this point, i'd say that there's more players that think this game's too hard than those that think it's too easy. And it is the fact that both attitides quite often apply to the very same content is a far bigger of an issue in my view.

[yann.1946]

On 9/30/2023 at 5:37 AM, Solvar.7953 said:

Something like the Svanir chief world boss is an example of what Anet does to address power creep - just give the boss a ton of hit points - no new mechanics or anything.  So now the boss is basically a boring 5 minute fight.  I get why they did it - before it was dying too fast and people were missing credit, but they went too far in the other direction.  And a lot of the newer bosses in some fractals or strikes seem to be similar HP sponges.  There is some reason to have a fight last a few minutes (skill recharge times and so forth), but many of these are much longer than that, so it is just doing the same thing, and hoping you don't get hit by a lag spike or make some mistake.

So be careful when asking for more difficulty content due to power creep.  Current indications is that if Anet did do something about it, it wouldn't make things any more interesting, it would just make battles take longer and be boring.

 

Interesting example, because the world boss rebalance you are talking about did add mechanics to every boss they touched.  Your statement about just adding health is factually incorrect.

It is true however that they didn't add a lot of mechanics, because they are intended as introductory bosses.

[yann.1946]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

No, if you have to do this, they did not. Only if you are a part of a big enough slice of the community would that be an issue.

Ironically, at this point, i'd say that there's more players that think this game's too hard than those that think it's too easy. And it is the fact that both attitides quite often apply to the very same content is a far bigger of an issue in my view.

That is true, there is content where that separation can be appropriate, but people make these statements about story content. Which is quite the dilemma.

[Krajtin.8956]

Right now doing the Mordremoth meta event takes 3 minutes to complete thanks to the stupid damage in the game.

I have seen many streamers and friends, who are disappointed by the final battle because it is too short. I have known people who have left the game because they could not enjoy that meta-event.

Anet has to make certain bosses increase their HP or have phases where they are invulnerable. Because with Mordremoth, right now, you can't complete some achievements

[Tiviana.2650]

This is a problem with games with no vertical progression. Everything stagnates because mobs dont get stronger in new content but player stats get shuffled and buffed to make up for the fact there is no progression. what people are talking about is a stat squish across the board, is that what you really want? when wow squished everything it was because level caps had gotten extreme, and every patch added increased stats on new gear. We have no level craziness, and we are already squished down to the level of the zones, the base stats and boons get buffed up though. In order to make content feel difficult across the board they would need to nerf everyones stats across the board, since we cant do a level reset. If they brought everyone down to 2016 then what progress is there? why are numbers going up all the time in a game with no gear progression? Ask that instead

[Obtena.7952]

5 hours ago, Tiviana.2650 said:

This is a problem with games with no vertical progression. Everything stagnates because mobs dont get stronger in new content but player stats get shuffled and buffed to make up for the fact there is no progression. what people are talking about is a stat squish across the board, is that what you really want? when wow squished everything it was because level caps had gotten extreme, and every patch added increased stats on new gear. We have no level craziness, and we are already squished down to the level of the zones, the base stats and boons get buffed up though. In order to make content feel difficult across the board they would need to nerf everyones stats across the board, since we cant do a level reset. If they brought everyone down to 2016 then what progress is there? why are numbers going up all the time in a game with no gear progression? Ask that instead

That's a weird conclusion; no vertical progression in theory means all content maintains a range of difficulty that is relevant to an individual player. As long as there are REASONS for players to continue visiting content and the content presents a 'solvable' problem to people, content doesn't become stagnant, regardless of its difficulty to the individual. HoT is a great example ... still being done with regularity and has been for the last  9 years since release, by people with all kinds of different skill levels ... because it still offers relevance to the players. 

People are just not willing to accept the fact that the 'formula' that this game's difficulty is based on is already set because that formula is fundamental to how the game works as part of a business. I would say at this point, if the game isn't appealing to people because too easy, they just need to find game more appropriate for their capabilities. Also, Anet already experimented with massive shifts in difficulty at HoT release. That didn't end well for anyone. 

Edited January 22 by Obtena.7952

[frazazel.7501]

The problem isn't that the game has no vertical progression, it's that there's power creep while old content is still relevant. The game is meant to have the same basic difficulty in all level 80 maps. but they keep adding power to the players with each expansion, without adjusting the monsters in old maps. As such, we outpace those monsters over time.

New maps tend to be balanced to the new power level. So a champion monster in SotO is usually stronger than a champion monster in HoT. That feels like it is a problem.

GW2 could fix this problem by continuing to increase the power of old content. This would be difficult, and it would also be a kind of a nerf to players who don't have the newest expansions, and don't have access to the hottest new power creep.

GW2 could fix this problem by not providing any new power creep in new expansions. But that is to a large degree what sells expansions. Removing it is cutting off your monetization, which isn't really an option.

I don't see an easy solution to maintain old content relevance alongside continuing new content that the community is excited for. It's a problem that has plagued many games over the years, and it's what eventually prompts sequels, where the cycle can start over again, or discontinuing old content (like Standard format in MtG, or the effective resets with new expansions in WoW).

As for what GW2 can do, I think that they should fix their gearing system, which gives players too many options to make their builds bad. This hamstrings their game difficulty design decisions, because they need to design for both highly optimized builds, and the majority of the population running terrible builds that do only 10% of their intended damage. The majority of prefixes have bad stat combinations that are never good in any possible build. The fact that there is a prefix that gives ferocity with no precision is a problem (there are 3). The fact that only 5/18 prefixes that give healing power also give concentration is a problem. Who is Crusader gear for??

GW2 should delete all the non-meta gear options, keeping the glass cannon prefixes and their tankier WvW counterparts, as well as healer gearsets. This would leave us with 8-12 prefixes (depending on if it's valuable to keep both Marauder and Dragon gear, etc.), and it would be so much harder for players to accidentally make a bad build. Let PvP players continue to use any option already available. They're not locked into their stat choices when buying armor, anyway, so there are no traps for them. Give players 8 great options instead of  8 great options + 4 slight variations of those options + 6 super-niche options + 30 always-bad options, and the average player who doesn't follow a build guide will be FAR more effective.

Will this hurt some existing niche builds? Yes. But the new-player experience is more important that the niche-build experience, and new niche builds using different gearsets will pop up to fill whatever void is left.