Power Creep, The game is too easy [Merged]

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, LadyKitty.6120 said:

Actually, you can also apparently filter varying amounts of logs and currently there's 1022 MO logs from last 3 weeks. Kinda small sample size but then again, GW2 has probably the smallest instanced content scene among the big MMOs. And it does have a filter for support builds, which indeed not perfect but still significantly lowers the skew in numbers. (for ex. scourge goes from 29k to 36k average if you check that option. Btw 10k higher than what's been standard for Kitty's aka. "80-85% of bench" player's average performance on the boss before the power creep) And for further accuracy, it has cdps/pdps filter as well to separate better and worse performing versions of the spec.
So, not perfect but it's the best we players have for real situation-data. But ofc people don't use only that but also spreadsheets with the precise numbers of each skill when estimating when something's overtuned. Not to forget logs showing damage distributions between various conditions and power dps skills for further analysis. (though not precise power/condi damage distribution for condi skills since all condi damage is shown as damage from condi type)

Ofc devs might have further advanced tools but we players don't know about the depth they can see to.

The issue is, that balance done based on those datasets is only based around high-end players. A balance that ignores pretty much a huge majority of players is, let's say, less than ideal. In reality, it should be done at both ends - not just based on the top, but also looking at bottom and average. And that's just not how it is being done in GW2.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

Constantly adjusting the balance to keep content from becoming trivial is a wild goose chase.

The only way to future-proof a game against power creen is  slowing down the the DPS past a thresthold. 
No damage should be cut, instead part of the damage past a thresthold would be split and delivered over a longer amount of time, but still delivered in full as long as the enemyt stays in combat.
The higher the DPS, the larger the portion of damage staggered, but it can't be a fixed DPS cap, or speedrun competitions would be impossible.  Both the normal damage and the staggered damage have to still increase as DPS increases. Staggerd damage would simply slow down the DPS hike past the threshold. Something in the lines of this.  That way speeclear contests would still happen, but the winners will be determined more often by smaller time differences closer to milliseconds than seconds.

A damage staggering mechanic working like this would have added benefits other than keeping powercreep from trivializing content:

• It would be a way to pinpoint heavily udnerperforming players doing low damage to warn then that their damage too low, as they won't get any damage staggered. 
• It would make low rank enemies last a minimum amount of time, allowing them to actually land a skill or two before dying under heavy fire.
• It would allow tagging and sharing credit more equitably and low rank enemies would no longer die before their models can even render.

[LadyKitty.6120]

42 minutes ago, MithranArkanere.8957 said:

Constantly adjusting the balance to keep content from becoming trivial is a wild goose chase.

The only way to future-proof a game against power creen is  slowing down the the DPS past a thresthold. 
No damage should be cut, instead part of the damage past a thresthold would be split and delivered over a longer amount of time, but still delivered in full as long as the enemyt stays in combat.
The higher the DPS, the larger the portion of damage staggered, but it can't be a fixed DPS cap, or speedrun competitions would be impossible.  Both the normal damage and the staggered damage have to still increase as DPS increases. Staggerd damage would simply slow down the DPS hike past the threshold. Something in the lines of this.  That way speeclear contests would still happen, but the winners will be determined more often by smaller time differences closer to milliseconds than seconds.

A damage staggering mechanic working like this would have added benefits other than keeping powercreep from trivializing content:

• It would be a way to pinpoint heavily udnerperforming players doing low damage to warn then that their damage too low, as they won't get any damage staggered. 
• It would make low rank enemies last a minimum amount of time, allowing them to actually land a skill or two before dying under heavy fire.
• It would allow tagging and sharing credit more equitably and low rank enemies would no longer die before their models can even render.

Any ideas on how to implement that with power builds? With condis it'd be a simple matter of reducing stacks and increasing duration but with power that would essentially require converting most strike damage skills into DoTs similar to guardian's focus 4 or something?

[MithranArkanere.8957]

8 hours ago, LadyKitty.6120 said:

Any ideas on how to implement that with power builds? With condis it'd be a simple matter of reducing stacks and increasing duration but with power that would essentially require converting most strike damage skills into DoTs similar to guardian's focus 4 or something?

It would not matter if it's power of DPS. It would be an intermediate layer between the damage delivered and the damage taken by the enemies.

[Tiviana.2650]

On 9/11/2023 at 1:31 PM, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

If Scourge's rotation is over complicated I'm not sure what one might consider simple.

It's around the level of Rifle Mech, which did ~34k DPS and got nerfed, because it was "too easy". Even funnier, Scourge was considered way too easy for what it could do before EoD, when with the same difficulty it did ~37k DPS, now it does 49k.

Edit: Should add Reaper, Condi Virt and DD to the list of ""overcomplicated rotation""

What do you run on your scourge? I see a lot of dps when I run a lot raids and strikes, and the thing that stands out  the most is, the best players pull high numbers. Everyone else is 8k to 21k this is true of the same builds. for something to be op means its capable of pulling that kind  of damage healer one shotting w/e in anyone's hands. I see a lot of scourges but only a minority can play well enough to pull those numbers. Same with any class, the better a player you are the higher your numbers. 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Tiviana.2650

[Elzo Yell.1784]

On 9/11/2023 at 2:36 PM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Power weaver did 41k dps back in 2012-2013?

That must be so high dps they break the space-time continuum.

Then again it is an elementalist I guess.

I can't find where I said it used to deal 41k dps in 2012-2013 ?

[Widebody.5071]

On 9/10/2023 at 7:45 PM, Spike rr.7125 said:

SotO has brought an entire new level of power creep to the game. The new builds that are coming out are so awesome like scourge and herald. The issue is going back to older content just feels brain dead now. I do like that the game may be easier for some trying to get into the game however, there is no new stuff to be challenged by, especially with the new builds. If feel like Anet should really lean into challenge motes more and revisit earlier raid content and maybe update some of the trivial fractals. I want to be challenged by something other than HT CM. I want the power creep to come with some sort of area for the game difficulty to get its own version of power crept.

Sounds like you need to move up to higher level fractals, if that's not plausible or you've maxed out the fractals it may be time to move on. Unless this is an attempt at trying to gatekeep the fractal rewards in order to control the market.

[Widebody.5071]

On 9/11/2023 at 2:31 PM, Sobx.1758 said:

Pretty much all of this is wrong or mostly wrong because you're trying to generalize for no reason (like the first sentence you wrote here). Celestial meta isn't "because nerfs", but because of... celestial gear buffs.

I also wonder how you're trying to connect "all complainers are golem testers" with "power creep consequence = celestial meta". 🤔

Nerfs had was a big component in celestial meta, it drove me to it and when the the complaints started again I went to an old storage toon suited up with celestial and finally realize how cheesy ranged builds really were when complaints started over that went to another storage toon only to confirm what I found out on my last toon.

Everything's player driven due to short sighted attempts to give themselves an advantage. Only to come back later and advocate for more changes to make up for what they moaned and groaned for or after others had adapted to the changes.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

1 hour ago, Widebody.5071 said:

Sounds like you need to move up to higher level fractals, if that's not plausible or you've maxed out the fractals it may be time to move on. Unless this is an attempt at trying to gatekeep the fractal rewards in order to control the market.

i'm afraid there's nothing to "move on" to, as fractals are the end-game content for five players. no one is trying to gatekeep the rewards because the highest tier of fractals is specifically meant for highly experienced players and gives the best rewards, so it should remain challenging.

 

i also don't know why you keep talking about "celestial meta". celestial has never been meta in pve; the only time its used is on healers and even then its used for expert play as taking the gear actually lowers your healing output in exchange for higher damage.

Edited September 16, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Widebody.5071]

22 minutes ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

i'm afraid there's nothing to "move on" to, as fractals are the end-game content for five players. no one is trying to gatekeep the rewards because the highest tier of fractals is specifically meant for highly experienced players and gives the best rewards, so it should remain challenging.

 

i also don't know why you keep talking about "celestial meta". celestial has never been meta in pve; the only time its used is on healers and even then its used for expert play as taking the gear actually lowers your healing output in exchange for higher damage.

Well like I said it may time to move on since the content is too easy for "highly experienced players", instead of using others fractal experience to kick them from parties, yep... gate keeping. Due to the fact that someone has outgrown the game and instead of moving on they want to make the content even harder alienating even more players.

Healers, expert play... meta mania is not the only way to play this game, where's the originality, the diversity, the satisfaction that comes from creating something yourself instead of just being part of the herd.. Gw2 was supposed to break the traditional game mode but too many in the player base keep gravitating back to that game mode. The experts... they showed what they were all about during the E-sports episode.

Even though I never mentioned it I do like using celestial especially in pve, wvw is a joke.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Widebody.5071

[Lucy.3728]

On 9/11/2023 at 4:45 AM, Spike rr.7125 said:

The issue is going back to older content just feels brain dead now.

Fields of Ruin map exploration with my naked Holosmith, and not using mounts, was quite a challenge. I had to be saved by others in more than one occasion.

Create your own challenge if you want it harder. It is optional.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Lucy.3728

[Efar.8153]

nerfing the classes will make some fights pretty annoying.

 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Efar.8153

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 9/16/2023 at 11:37 AM, Widebody.5071 said:

Well like I said it may time to move on since the content is too easy for "highly experienced players", instead of using others fractal experience to kick them from parties, yep... gate keeping. Due to the fact that someone has outgrown the game and instead of moving on they want to make the content even harder alienating even more players.

Healers, expert play... meta mania is not the only way to play this game, where's the originality, the diversity, the satisfaction that comes from creating something yourself instead of just being part of the herd.. Gw2 was supposed to break the traditional game mode but too many in the player base keep gravitating back to that game mode. The experts... they showed what they were all about during the E-sports episode.

Even though I never mentioned it I do like using celestial especially in pve, wvw is a joke.

The majority of the game's content already allows for this degree of freedom.  Do you need a meta build to run solo open world/story content?  Metas?  Dungeons? Low tier fractals?  Does absolutely everything have to be easy enough that you can create a build by picking traits, skills, and stats out of a hat?  Or do you think it might be okay to have some semi-challenging content for players who are into that? 

If you think that's a reasonable position, then you can probably understand why some players are concerned about rampant power creep.  It isn't about gatekeeping.  For these players it literally ruins the part of the game they enjoy most.  Meanwhile, I doubt most of the "do whatever feels right" crowd could care less about content they mostly don't bother with anyway.  And I doubt any of them would notice a nerf if they weren't told about it.

[Surelia.2651]

41 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

The majority of the game's content already allows for this degree of freedom.  Do you need a meta build to run solo open world/story content?  Metas?  Dungeons? Low tier fractals?  Does absolutely everything have to be easy enough that you can create a build by picking traits, skills, and stats out of a hat?  Or do you think it might be okay to have some semi-challenging content for players who are into that? 

If you think that's a reasonable position, then you can probably understand why some players are concerned about rampant power creep.  It isn't about gatekeeping.  For these players it literally ruins the part of the game they enjoy most.  Meanwhile, I doubt most of the "do whatever feels right" crowd could care less about content they mostly don't bother with anyway.  And I doubt any of them would notice a nerf if they weren't told about it.

I am definitely concerned about it since even in open world - or I should say especially - it is noticeable.   When you have even "average" players saying the game is too easy, that is not a good place to be in.

As a comparison point, in ESO I raided for years (after doing it also in LoTRO) and the degree to which power creep killed challenges there since the Champion Point system came into the game, left a truly miserable experience for most of us at end game because the solution there was just stack more HP on challenge mode bosses.  You were lucky if you got real mechanic differences that amounted to much of anything compared to regular vet mode, and normal mode was a joke.  If there were, people whinged to such an astonishing degree that mechanics always got dialed back after the first few weeks of live and HPs stayed the same.  DPS for hm vet trials has been about 100-120K+ for some time now, and nobody bats an eye about it.  It's nuts.

I worry that this is the direction we are headed towards here.  Adding HPs to bosses does not make them challenging - it just makes them tedious.  People that support more HPs insist the challenge is sustaining dps and not making mistakes through mechanics for the duration of a longer fight, so if it takes longer then that is the challenge.  I don't agree with this, since most people at CM level of play are basically sleeping their way through mechanics anyway.   If power creep is creating such gaps between "average player" dps and  "acceptable" or even "optimal" raid/fractal dps that adjustments only at the cm level are made, it does not solve the build imbalance issues which caused all this to emerge in CM level play the first place.   If we get to the point where builds are also adjusted up or down solely on upper benchmarks then we end up where we are now as well.   People always strive to break them and then you are just back to square one.  There HAS to be a more creative approach to challenging contact creation than more dps/more hps.

This to say, where we are with PvE;  I can't even begin to talk about sPvP....

[itspomf.9523]

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

For these players it literally ruins the part of the game they enjoy most.  Meanwhile, I doubt most of the "do whatever feels right" crowd could care less about content they mostly don't bother with anyway.  And I doubt any of them would notice a nerf if they weren't told about it.

I would say this also affects us on the "low-end" as well.  As a filthy casual / solo player who really just wants to do whatever feels right, I'm yearning for a big huge nerf to builds, so that I can enjoy the occasional World Boss or larger encounter without it melting away in less time than a raid wing speedrun.

[Widebody.5071]

Well... everyone has a right to their own opinion, I'll just like to point out that allot of the meta builds are builds used in pve then somehow posted on metabattle later by someone else. After being berated for my build and using my defence trait low and behold a few months later it was posted in metabattle. Imagine that... a meta build taken from a "useless player" so that "expert" and "highly experienced" players can "git gud".

As I said in an earlier post "they'll use pve nerfs to get nerfs in pvp". Stop trying to rig the game and either adapt or move on. Most are happy with the way the game is, Chill with the bouncing from one account to another in order to comment, that game is old news and don't work. 

Starting to ramble here my bad, but my earthworm spirit is starting to flex. 😉

 

Edited September 18, 2023 by Widebody.5071

[LadyKitty.6120]

On 9/17/2023 at 6:06 PM, Efar.8153 said:

 

nerfing the classes will benefit only the ppl that sell raid, cm's and achievements.

gw2 is slowly turning into that game in which the best rewards are reserved for elitists...

 

One could say that power creep benefits them more. For ex. If you previously used 7 good players (2 healers, 2 boon-DPS and 3 pure DPS) to meet the DPS checks when selling and you boost overall DPS by 25%, the seller squad can pretty much yeet a DPS without having to change their strats (and maybe use just one boon-DPS/healer with slightly more boon duration) and thus sell 4 spots instead of 3, increasing the income by 33%. So nerfing powercrept overall DPS by 20% (49k to 39,5k) would mean 25% profit loss for sellers in such case (4 buyers to 3 buyers).

And 7 seller squad would be kinda overkill at many bosses these days since even chill but experienced squads can casually low-man quite a bunch of raid and strike bosses. Kitty's often done so.

[Widebody.5071]

Come on peeps you know how we roll... If pve builds is nerfed there will be a corresponding nerf attached to the competitive side also. Hell that's automatic,100% done. no ifs. buts, maybes or let's cross our fingers. Then 2-3 weeks later it'll start all over again this "build is too weak" or "that build" is too strong...

The good ole GW2 viscous cycle of bantering and bickering in an attempt to one up the next build and maintain content.

[BlaqueFyre.5678]

On 9/11/2023 at 1:56 PM, Elzo Yell.1784 said:

It's not a big powercreep if you check snowcrow's benchmark. Power weaver used to deal 41k, now it deals 44k at best. There are builds reaching 46k too, and we still need to test things to see if other builds could reach higher damage. For now, the main problem imo is reaper overshadowing every other DPS in the game, with almost the most easy gameplay possible and 49k DPS.

However, they did a good job by reworking boondps (even if there are still clunky builds like qdps Berserker), but it affected healers a lot, while HFB is still the best in term of flexibility, and capibility to give stab. Qdps Herald is very good because it uses the full potential of the core class, while qheal Herald is constantly denying sources of healing to give boons, while not being able to give stab.

For me, the main problem is more towards boonhealers and gameplay changes from the last big patch than the powercreep itself.

Power Reaper isn’t doing 49k dps… you might want to get your information right if you want to try to calling things out for being problematic 

[Astralporing.1957]

On 9/17/2023 at 8:54 PM, Surelia.2651 said:

I am definitely concerned about it since even in open world - or I should say especially - it is noticeable.   When you have even "average" players saying the game is too easy, that is not a good place to be in.

The "average" players are those that post about how story encounters are too hard, i'm afraid. And the threads to that end still pop up quite regularly on these forums.

[Widebody.5071]

Maybe we depend on numbers too much and not implementation. Meleeing a boss and attacking it with range with a pet to soak up much of the damage is entirely different things, and quite disingenuous to use as an example.

Much gaslighting this post I see.

[Zera.9435]

The funny thing about these people talking about doing 45k dps, that's against a golem that does not move away or hit you back or do anything to reduce the damage you do, all while having permanent upkeep of all max boons forever. In actual game play the boss moves, you will get CC'd, you will have to stop to heal up or revive someone, and you will NOT have all the max boons with permanent uptime. You will NOT do 45k in actual gameplay. There's nothing bad about doing more damage overall. Disparities between things like one class doing nearly twice as much as everything else, THAT is an actual issue, but everyone doing more damage overall than 8 years ago is NOT an issue. 

If it's too easy, maybe don't use the +power infusions, don't use optimized builds/rotations, don't use food buffs or enhancements. Let the rest of us, the majority, who don't do as much damage as the extreme few, enjoy the power creep. You can make the game harder for yourself much easier than ANET can.

[LadyKitty.6120]

7 hours ago, Zera.9435 said:

The funny thing about these people talking about doing 45k dps, that's against a golem that does not move away or hit you back or do anything to reduce the damage you do, all while having permanent upkeep of all max boons forever. In actual game play the boss moves, you will get CC'd, you will have to stop to heal up or revive someone, and you will NOT have all the max boons with permanent uptime. You will NOT do 45k in actual gameplay. There's nothing bad about doing more damage overall. Disparities between things like one class doing nearly twice as much as everything else, THAT is an actual issue, but everyone doing more damage overall than 8 years ago is NOT an issue. 

Except that there are people who are currently benching 47k (not even actual benchmarkers, just people who practise the rotas) and doing almost 46k at bosses. Kitty's seen logs. If you know the mechs enough to basically include dealing them into the rotation (reps!) and how to greed hard, it's not even that hard to do almost golem damage during burns. At many bosses the endnumber for skilled DPSer is lower than their golem number simply due to forced downtime from boss going away or invulnerable. Power builds can use that time to reset their burst to even reach higher burn numbers than golem endnumber due to phase transition soon after burst is done. (thus no lower DPS time between bursts which lowers the DPS numbers for many power builds during long burns or when boss never goes invuln)

And also, most DPS builds only need might, fury, quickness and alacrity and those are pretty guaranteed in most decent squads (since people specifically LFG those booners).

[Sobx.1758]

14 hours ago, Zera.9435 said:

The funny thing about these people talking about doing 45k dps, that's against a golem that does not move away or hit you back or do anything to reduce the damage you do, all while having permanent upkeep of all max boons forever. In actual game play the boss moves, you will get CC'd, you will have to stop to heal up or revive someone, and you will NOT have all the max boons with permanent uptime. You will NOT do 45k in actual gameplay.

Except it's not exactly about [that particular number], all that number is, is an easy point of reference to see a clear increase in the damage dealt by the players.

14 hours ago, Zera.9435 said:

If it's too easy, maybe don't use the +power infusions, don't use optimized builds/rotations, don't use food buffs or enhancements.

If it's too easy, don't use game's mechanics people always have been using is such a weird position to take here.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Ashen.2907]

5 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Except it's not exactly about [that particular number], all that number is, is an easy point of reference to see a clear increase in the damage dealt by the players.

If it's too easy, don't use game's mechanics people always have been using is such a weird position to take here.

This.

If the answer to official functionality is to not use it then something is wrong.