A Guide to providing infinite content for a whole playerbase with 1 intern - Please Arenanet, pleaaase

[Zok.4956]

41 minutes ago, Philalive.8654 said:

1. So, PvP is dead? Solution is to... what?

Only if Anet wants to revive this mode will there be a chance of a good solution. However, Anet seems to have completely different priorities.

 

44 minutes ago, Philalive.8654 said:

2. I agree that Anet haven't done balancing well historically, but again, the solution to that is... what? Less balance? Don't touch anything again? Not to try and fix it?

The solution is seemingly simple. Anet needs to do better balancing. The fact that Anet seems to be trying, but there are far more "misses" than "hits", shows that it's not that easy after all for Anet. Which is why I don't think things will suddenly and unexpectedly change for the better.

 

51 minutes ago, Philalive.8654 said:

3. I will concede that it's a cheap statement to make. But attacking that statement and then proceeding to attack my arguments with "[they] do not seem strong or good enough on their own." without any sort of counter argument or criticism of the arguments themselves, does seem hypocritical to me.

You agreed with me that it was a “cheap statement” from you. What should I provide arguments for on this point?

 

In summary: I agree with you that good and better balancing is important for all game modes in GW2. But to believe that it is a good suggestion that no one else has thought of before and that it will suddenly get better now that you have made the suggestion is ignoring the past and what Anet has provided so far. Which is why I think this is unrealistic and naive.

 

[Zok.4956]

22 minutes ago, Philalive.8654 said:

It feels like people have lots of things to say about my comparisons, my arguments and suggestions but no one is actually offering an alternative solution or even arguing against more balance. It doesn't seem like anyone is giving me reasons for why we shouldn't have more consistent/more focus on balance.

I think you misread the/most answers.  I haven't read anywhere here that a better class balance as such was rejected from others in the discussion. It's more your conclusions and comparisons. And if someone thinks a suggestion is bad or impractical (for whatever reason), one is not obliged to make a better suggestion.

 

[Philalive.8654]

46 minutes ago, Nash.2681 said:

So tl;dr: you want more frequent balancing for PvP and WvW and the thread title is completely missleading?

I want more frequent balancing for all modes. WvW, PvP and PvE.

What's misleading about the thread title?

[Nash.2681]

16 minutes ago, Philalive.8654 said:

I want more frequent balancing for all modes. WvW, PvP and PvE.

What's misleading about the thread title?

As others already mentionend- balancing the game =/= adding content, let alone infinite content. Behind all the walls of text you basicly want the Devs to provide more frequent balance patches, that's it. And while I'm all for a reasonable balance, I don't think constant shacking up things is a good thing in a MMORPG.

[Cyninja.2954]

10 minutes ago, Philalive.8654 said:

I want more frequent balancing for all modes. WvW, PvP and PvE.

What's misleading about the thread title?

Your thread title suggests that this will equate or be similar to providing more content. Which does not apply to PvE, applies in a limited way to Spvp (given that mode has far more serious issues) and WvW.

Balance changes to LoL or DotA do not change the overall approach or meta or very rarely does. LoL for exmaple will still be  played with an AP carry, a bruiser, a jungle, a support, etc. You are merely shuffling the classes which perform said role. Similar to competitive content in WoW for example (which is a shadow of its past).

GW2 with it's far less strict roles is affected very differently to frequent balance changes.

All of that  as mentioned at the same time competing with player engagement, the ability and willingness to adapt to balance changes (learning a completely different class for example) or even be able to adapt on a gearing scale.

More frequent balance patches CAN have net beneficial effects, bringing outliers in line and/or more options for players to chose from, if they do not shake up the overall design.

[Philalive.8654]

44 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

Only if Anet wants to revive this mode will there be a chance of a good solution. However, Anet seems to have completely different priorities.

 

The solution is seemingly simple. Anet needs to do better balancing. The fact that Anet seems to be trying, but there are far more "misses" than "hits", shows that it's not that easy after all for Anet. Which is why I don't think things will suddenly and unexpectedly change for the better.

 

You agreed with me that it was a “cheap statement” from you. What should I provide arguments for on this point?

 

In summary: I agree with you that good and better balancing is important for all game modes in GW2. But to believe that it is a good suggestion that no one else has thought of before and that it will suddenly get better now that you have made the suggestion is ignoring the past and what Anet has provided so far. Which is why I think this is unrealistic and naive.

 

"Only if Anet wants to revive this mode will there be a chance of a good solution."

I agree that PvP has a lot more issues that need to be dealt with other than balancing changes, there are however still people that enjoy that gamemode and the small investment to balance it more frequently is a step in the right direction.

 

"The solution is seemingly simple. Anet needs to do better balancing. The fact that Anet seems to be trying, but there are far more "misses" than "hits", shows that it's not that easy after all for Anet. Which is why I don't think things will suddenly and unexpectedly change for the better."

I agree that "Anet needs to do better balancing" but saying that isn't really offering much of a solution for the problem than just being a statement about the problem itself. I believe their job would be easier if they did smaller and more frequent changes, and therefore bring more positive changes. The idea of the balance team being wrong and having misses will be prevalent in both systems are there is no good solution to that.

Maybe its' naive to expect things to magically become better, personally I just feel I could offer my perspective on how to improve for the future.

 

"You agreed with me that it was a “cheap statement” from you. What should I provide arguments for on this point?"

I just meant that as much of a pointless state that I made, criticising that statement is just as pointless. Your point of the statement itself was fine, I was referring to countering my actual arguments and not the fluff, if that makes sense.

 

"In summary: I agree with you that good and better balancing is important for all game modes in GW2. But to believe that it is a good suggestion that no one else has thought of before and that it will suddenly get better now that you have made the suggestion is ignoring the past and what Anet has provided so far. Which is why I think this is unrealistic and naive."

This is a fair point, might very well be naive to think a forum post will change anything, but I like to remain hopeful. I'd love to hear why they decide not to do more balancing from Anet's perspective.

 

"I think you misread the/most answers.  I haven't read anywhere here that a better class balance as such was rejected from others in the discussion. It's more your conclusions and comparisons. And if someone thinks a suggestion is bad or impractical (for whatever reason), one is not obliged to make a better suggestion. "

One is not obliged to do anything about a forum post about a game.

My comparisons and conclusions are the following: Other games have more frequent balancing and it seems to me they also have better balancing. I think Anet should do more frequent balancing.

Now some have criticized that saying that it's not an apt comparison because of X and Y reasons, which I have refuted. I don't think I misread any of the responses.

 

While I will admit that I can be defensive I feel like statements like:
"I personally don't think this improves or fixes anything in GW2.  Most of the player base does not seem to like when things are "shaken up" or having to re-do their build every patch or being subjectively forced to play a different profession after spending many, many hours on one you love."

"The entire problem with this conversation is that Arena Net probably knows what content the community interacts with most, and which is worth putting resources into. Guild Wars 2 is one of those games where the development team, regardless of its size, will never make every group of players happy."

"A new balance team, changes by the existing balance team. None of it is going to make a difference at this point."

Clearly goes against my suggested solution?

I think my arguments on the other points have been directed towards why I don't think the criticism is warranted and not just that no one is offering an alternative solution.

 

I'm glad we can agree that balance has been bad and it would be beneficial for most if it was better. Do you have any ideas on how to make it better?

[Philalive.8654]

24 minutes ago, Nash.2681 said:

As others already mentionend- balancing the game =/= adding content, let alone infinite content. Behind all the walls of text you basicly want the Devs to provide more frequent balance patches, that's it. And while I'm all for a reasonable balance, I don't think constant shacking up things is a good thing in a MMORPG.

Like I've said in the other responses, there are levels to "shaking things up". I'm not advocating for massive changes, rather more frequent and smaller patches. As for the title I'll bundle it in with my response to Cyninja below.

23 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Your thread title suggests that this will equate or be similar to providing more content. Which does not apply to PvE, applies in a limited way to Spvp (given that mode has far more serious issues) and WvW.

Balance changes to LoL or DotA do not change the overall approach or meta or very rarely does. LoL for exmaple will still be  played with an AP carry, a bruiser, a jungle, a support, etc. You are merely shuffling the classes which perform said role. Similar to competitive content in WoW for example (which is a shadow of its past).

GW2 with it's far less strict roles is affected very differently to frequent balance changes.

All of that  as mentioned at the same time competing with player engagement, the ability and willingness to adapt to balance changes (learning a completely different class for example) or even be able to adapt on a gearing scale.

More frequent balance patches CAN have net beneficial effects, bringing outliers in line and/or more options for players to chose from, if they do not shake up the overall design.

I see what you mean about the title, sure it's obviously not a infinite content glitch, but I don't think that's what people actually expected either? If you were, well, I'm sorry I mislead you, it was merely meant as a bit of tongue in cheek (but I do stand my the fact that it will provide content for a specific subset of players, also known as "a playerbase", poor choice of words in the title by me probably).

To clarify what I mean and bring the discussion back on topic (if I may): I think balance patches do provide content, especially for WvW and PvP, it's the most meaningful content that those modes get. As a WvW and PvP enjoyer (along with PvE) the balance patches are the most exciting announcements there are, short of things like new Elite Specilizations or new Weapons. Playing the game against new builds is extremely important for the longevity of the game. It's obviously not comparable to something like a new map or a new raid but in some ways it's just as important. I find that for me personally at least playing a new build in PvE can improve my enjoyment of the content a ton.

Considering the effort it would take for 1 intern to make a few (small) adjustments here and there more often I feel like it would give the game more longevity even though it might not be in the conventional way that "real" content will. Now I will admit that it's more of an issue in WvW and PvP, PvE balancing is actually quite good at the moment (in the grand scheme of things) in my opinion so I recognise why a lot of people are cautious (esp. considering Anet's track record). So I think I should've preficed and explained what I actually was advocating for in my original post rather than focus too much on the comparisons with other games?

I think I've been much too combative and defensive in my responses in this thread so I'm trying to be more grounded, but I hope so far (in what I just wrote) we can agree, right?

Edit: To clarify by what I mean by content here: Balancing > New Possible Builds > Theorycrafting / Buildcrafting > New ways of playing and enjoying the game (but in old content). So different kind of content but in my opinion, still content, if that makes more sense?

Edited May 27 by Philalive.8654

[Zok.4956]

1 hour ago, Philalive.8654 said:

My comparisons and conclusions are the following: Other games have more frequent balancing and it seems to me they also have better balancing. I think Anet should do more frequent balancing.

I think that's too simplistic a view to solve the issues raised, because the differences between games are about more than just balancing.

1 hour ago, Philalive.8654 said:

"A Guide to providing infinite content for a whole playerbase with 1 intern - Please Arenanet, pleaaase"
What's misleading about the thread title?

First: "infinite content" addresses only games where PvP (the other players) is the content. GW2 is much more than that.
Second: "with 1 intern" Seems like an arrogant presumption because you think in GW2 one intern is enough to regularly achieve good balancing. This is an oversimplification because for good balancing in GW2 you not only have to have a very good knowledge of all classes and class mechanics and class identities, but you also have to consider the effects and consequences on all game modes. And you need a vision of what you want to achieve and how you can achieve it consistently. Because erratic shaking things up is not good balancing. Erratic shaking things up is one of the many reasons why the eSports scene left sPvP/GW2 years ago.

1 hour ago, Philalive.8654 said:

I'd love to hear why they decide not to do more balancing from Anet's perspective.

If Anet answered you, they would say that they are already doing the right things at the right intervals.

1 hour ago, Philalive.8654 said:

Do you have any ideas on how to make it better?

Just look in the forum. With every balance patch and balance patch preview, there are countless players who criticize and comment in detail and give suggestions for improvement.

 

P.S. Please learn to quote. You can mark individual sentences/statements and quote them.

Edited May 27 by Zok.4956

[Nash.2681]

24 minutes ago, Philalive.8654 said:

[...]Edit: To clarify by what I mean by content here: Balancing > New Possible Builds > Theorycrafting / Buildcrafting > New ways of playing and enjoying the game (but in old content). So different kind of content but in my opinion, still content, if that makes more sense?

I get what you're trying to say (I think), but I really don't think this would have the major impact you're hoping for. I played DotA 2 for many, many years, heck, I even played DotA when it was a Warcraft 3 Mod in its early stages and was there when it grew and became popular. The thing is- the vast majority of balance updates in those game look huge at first sight with endless patch notes. But if you look closely, it's very small tweeks most of the time, like changing cast times by 0.25 seconds etc. The kind of stuff that won't affect players hero choice. Big and relevant updates that really shake things up by major revamps, adding new heroes etc. that actually change the meta, picks, bans, counterpicks etc. don't happen all the time. And even if they did- I'd strongly advice against taking that as a blue print for GW2. The Moba genre is just too different compared to GW2 PvP and WvW, let alone PvE.

[Philalive.8654]

21 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

I think that's too simplistic a view to solve the issues raised, because the differences between games are about more than just balancing.

The issue I raised was: Balancing isn't great with the current system.

My idea for something better is: More frequent balancing will probably make it easier for the balance team to react to changes in the meta-game. Give them more opportunities to make changes without shaking the whole meta up. Like for example just bringing up PvE Alacrity Mirage slightly this month, along with some other tweaks. Another patch in the same scope the next month.

Now, is that going to solve every issue with balancing? No, of course not but I never claimed as much. Just because it's a simple idea doesn't mean it doesn't have merit. The comparisons that I made were just an example on how other games approach the subject. I have said multiple times that I know they're not 1 to 1 comparsions and I'm not pretending they are. Why is it "too simplistic", is the suggestion itself bad? Do you think the cadence of balance patches that we have right now is the perfect one?

26 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

First: "infinite content" addresses only games where PvP (the other players) is the content. GW2 is much more than that.

I know that Guild Wars 2 is more than PvP, I'm not sure what lead you to believe otherwise, if you'd like to point it out to me, I'm all ears. In any case, I still believe it applies to Guild Wars 2. Not only WvW and PvP but PvE as well.

Like I said in my earlier response:

1 hour ago, Philalive.8654 said:

I see what you mean about the title, sure it's obviously not a infinite content glitch, but I don't think that's what people actually expected either? If you were, well, I'm sorry I mislead you, it was merely meant as a bit of tongue in cheek (but I do stand my the fact that it will provide content for a specific subset of players, also known as "a playerbase", poor choice of words in the title by me probably).

...

Edit: To clarify by what I mean by content here: Balancing > New Possible Builds > Theorycrafting / Buildcrafting > New ways of playing and enjoying the game (but in old content). So different kind of content but in my opinion, still content, if that makes more sense?

 

30 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

Second: "with 1 intern" Seems like an arrogant presumption because you think in GW2 one intern is enough to regularly achieve good balancing. This is an oversimplification because for good balancing in GW2 you not only have to have a very good knowledge of all classes and class mechanics and class identities, but you also have to consider the effects and consequences on all game modes. And you need a vision of what you want to achieve and how you can achieve it consistently. Because erratic shaking things up is not good balancing. Erratic shaking things up is one of the many reasons why the eSports scene left sPvP/GW2 years ago.

Again, I must apologize for my tounge in cheek commentary, I don't literally think they should get an intern and have him change random stuff. I would've thought the oversimplification was obvious enough without you pointing it out but obviously it wasn't, my bad. We already have a balance team though and I believe they're capable of better than we've seen historically, now obviously I can't be sure why it's been slow and/or messy but I can still advocate for what I think will help. I don't think anyone here is advocating for "Erratic shaking things up". Balancing shouldn't be random and no one's said it should be. I've been quite clear that the scope of this post is to encourage more frequent, smaller updates.

Just so we're clear: I am not saying that they should "Erratically shake things up". I am saying that more frequent, small tweaks to bring up clear under- and overperformers on a monthly basis (for example) seems to me like a more sustainable "system" than big quarterly updates that either "erratically shake things up" or don't fix any of the issues the game is suffering from.

 

42 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

If Anet answered you, they would say that they are already doing the right things at the right intervals.

My question was: I'd love to hear why they decide not to do more balancing from Anet's perspective.

Why in that question was the key-word. I know that they're releasing quarterly updates, I just don't understand why. That's what I'd like to hear the explaination about, not what they're doing right now, that's already clear.

 

43 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

Just look in the forum. With every balance patch and balance patch preview, there are countless players who criticize and comment in detail and give suggestions for improvement.

I know that there's feedback on the balance changes, what I'm asking with my question is if you have any ideas on how to improve the system for balancing that we currently have. It seems to be the popular opinion that it's been pretty bad, and still is. That's certainly my opinion, not all bad of course but it's not been smooth sailing. So I'm not asking about specific changes here, I'm asking what you think Anet should do differently to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Because I think they should release smaller, more frequent balance patches.

[Philalive.8654]

43 minutes ago, Nash.2681 said:

I get what you're trying to say (I think), but I really don't think this would have the major impact you're hoping for. I played DotA 2 for many, many years, heck, I even played DotA when it was a Warcraft 3 Mod in its early stages and was there when it grew and became popular. The thing is- the vast majority of balance updates in those game look huge at first sight with endless patch notes. But if you look closely, it's very small tweeks most of the time, like changing cast times by 0.25 seconds etc. The kind of stuff that won't affect players hero choice. Big and relevant updates that really shake things up by major revamps, adding new heroes etc. that actually change the meta, picks, bans, counterpicks etc. don't happen all the time. And even if they did- I'd strongly advice against taking that as a blue print for GW2. The Moba genre is just too different compared to GW2 PvP and WvW, let alone PvE.

I appreciate the good will and I have a lot of respect for the good faith you've shown trying to understand my point (I know I can lack that sometimes).

I do agree with you that they are small changes.

Generally the way I see MOBAs doing their balancing cycle so to speak, is in those games is you have a big shake-up - maybe once a year or so. Just like we've had with Elite Specilizations, and to a lesser degree with SotO weapons. Elite Specs were a much bigger shake-up than any of the DotA/League yearly reworks are so it makes sense that they would be fewer and further between.

After the shake-up you balance pretty aggressively at the start since there will be many things out of whack, it's almost impossible to predict exactly what meta players will cook up after so many simultaneous changes so there's bound to be clear issues (even more so in an MMO). Then as the year progresses you keep tweaking things, champions/heroes(/builds) that are clearly under- or overperforming you touch up a bit to make them more in line with the vision you have for the game(-mode).

It's hard to say exactly what our "shake-ups" will look like since we don't know exactly what's going to be coming from the new expansions but I think it's safe to assume it'll be around the same impact as weapons from SotO had, with some margin. And I'm quite happy with that for now, hard to say until we know more.

What I think is missing from the recipe in Guild Wars 2 is the after-care phase, we don't get enough small tweaks and changes to keep things updated and fresh during an expansion. It feels like specs and builds very often get put in the "forgotten" box and not touched at all. This is something I've felt for a long time and MOBAs just seemed like an apt comparsion since they're generally extremely competitive, which makes balance very important to them. They happen to have a system that I think works quite well and as long as you keep in mind that you can't make a 1 to 1 copy, with some intelligent decisions you may be able to draw some inspiration from what they've learned over the years.

I think it would be better if Anet took some inspiration from the comparisons that I made and made more tweaks and small changes throughout the expansion to make sure the game is not spiraling out of control and to keep poor Mirage (just an example because the spec is struggling a lot rn) players actually feel relevant.

I'm not saying we should be League of Legends but I think there are things that they do well over there, in this case what I've just outlined and I think it could be beneficial for Anet to draw some inspiration from that.

I could've worded this a lot better at the start and it would've probably been more clear but I hope this makes sense. And to be super clear here: I don't think we should 1 to 1 copy the blueprint from DotA or League, just that there are some things that they do well. I understand that the games I'm comparing are very different, in a lot of ways, that doesn't mean that the idea itself is bad.

Hopefully we can step away from the comparisons and actually discuss the idea of moving towards more frequent but smaller consistent balance patches. I apologize for the confusion, I hope I've made my point clear.

[Zok.4956]

46 minutes ago, Philalive.8654 said:

So I'm not asking about specific changes here, I'm asking what you think Anet should do differently to avoid making similar mistakes in the future.

Well, Anet should do balance patches regularly (monthly wouldn't be bad) and should also enter into a real discussion with the community and explain why this or that change is happening and how it fits into the general vision of the classes (and which vision Anet agrees with the classes still have).

Anet does provide some explanation in the patch notes, but often they don't fit with the changes made. Anet should ignore the few aggressive comments, but respond to the constructive, factual and apparently expert comments. Anet should then openly admit mistakes and correct them. The few aggressive comments from a few players should not give Anet the false excuse that they cannot have objective and good discussions with the community about balancing.

I have no hope of that happening though.

[Philalive.8654]

12 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

Well, Anet should do balance patches regularly (monthly wouldn't be bad) and should also enter into a real discussion with the community and explain why this or that change is happening and how it fits into the general vision of the classes (and which vision Anet agrees with the classes still have).

Anet does provide some explanation in the patch notes, but often they don't fit with the changes made. Anet should ignore the few aggressive comments, but respond to the constructive, factual and apparently expert comments. Anet should then openly admit mistakes and correct them. The few aggressive comments from a few players should not give Anet the false excuse that they cannot have objective and good discussions with the community about balancing.

I have no hope of that happening though.

I wholehearedly agree!

I think you're pretty justified in having no hope for it to happen, considering Anet's track record and everything. "Hopefully" we'll be proven wrong

PS: Glad we could find some common ground in the end.

Edited May 27 by Philalive.8654

[flyingplanet.6912]

Hey man OP your statements are very true.
So many dedicated players left ever since balance patches became low-effort, stale, number-change spam.
Zero competition, stale meta, followed by abandoned maps. Just look at maps that was released few months ago. They are already mostly abandoned. 
Current balance patch makes no sense at all. Maybe a little bit more damage hitting golems? I can come up with this lazy balance patch in a few days tbh. I don't know what they are working on but oh jeez... they took 3 months to come up with these changes?
Few years ago, when there were devs who actually understood how game works, each balance patch was a breathe of fresh air; creative and entertaining. Now? well you know what my answer would be.

[Purple Effects.2503]

6 hours ago, Philalive.8654 said:

he issue I raised was: Balancing isn't great with the current system.

My idea for something better is: More frequent balancing will probably make it easier for the balance team to react to changes in the meta-game. Give them more opportunities to make changes without shaking the whole meta up. Like for example just bringing up PvE Alacrity Mirage slightly this month, along with some other tweaks. Another patch in the same scope the next month.

Now, is that going to solve every issue with balancing? No, of course not but I never claimed as much. Just because it's a simple idea doesn't mean it doesn't have merit. The comparisons that I made were just an example on how other games approach the subject. I have said multiple times that I know they're not 1 to 1 comparsions and I'm not pretending they are. Why is it "too simplistic", is the suggestion itself bad? Do you think the cadence of balance patches that we have right now is the perfect one

Tbh I don’t think gw2 balancing is that bad, when you look at several factors, like gw2 wingman and more the averaging DPS / output is pretty similar. 
 

I think a deeper issue is: what’s the point when the absolute vast majority only play 1 of 2 classes. And people will jump and screech this is over balance. But it isn’t.

 The vast majority don’t raid and don’t PvP. 

it’s the sheer disparity in ease of play. In every game, ease of access is the core pillar of players choice. Because when everything’s balanced. Playing a harder to play class becomes meaningless. You’re just peddling harder to reach the same speed. 
 

you can’t have necromancer able to run around in full berserker and solo the game without a problem, and tell elementalists to go farm a time gated currency to make a celestial set. No ones gonna opt for that. 
 

games have disparities in difficulty yes. But this games I find is a lot wider. Spanning anywhere from classes spending 70% of the time auto attacking in their top DPs builds to having to span 14-15 button openers in between weapon swaps and usage of F keys abilities : utilities 

And for the love of god return DPs staff ele specs, wizard is literally the most overplayed archetype on the genre, to just not bother having one is mad 

[UNDEAD.6108]

Making huge balance updates every few weeks to make and keep content challenging would really bad thing for casual PvE open world players like me who don't have full set of legendary armors and weapons to change build easily without need to grind for +8 hours every day just to get enough gold and/or materials to get full set of gear to make up to date build just to do basic PvE open world content before next balance update and do this same thing constantly.

Currently it takes me while to get enough gold and/or materials to get single full set of exotic gear for the single build (note that i don't have any of crafting skills at level 500 to make ascended gear and i don't like doing strike missions, fractals and raids because i fear to cause failing the group content and then get all the hate from other players.) when there is many days a week i play Guild wars 2 only like 30 min to 2 hours just to few PvE open world meta-events and wizard's vault daily objectives.

if i want to save lots of gold then i need to grind WvW which can take even longer when there is not always enough players in my team when i want do WvW content for few hours in few days a week.

[DeathPanel.8362]

I think the following will improve the longevity of the game.

1) New specializations or weapon sets released as paid DLC(gems), or free content if possible.

2) A new system where a vendor sells valuable items that cost a special currency only earnable in designated "bonus zones" through repeatable zone-based achievements, on a scheduled rotational basis.  This will incentivize players scattered across the world to replay old zones.  A formal, permanent version of the "bonus event" that already exists.

3)Improving engine/net code to allow for a greater number of players in pve/wvw zone.  This will make events more epic, and increase player enjoyment.

[Purple Effects.2503]

59 minutes ago, UNDEAD.6108 said:

Making huge balance updates every few weeks to make and keep content challenging would really bad thing for casual PvE open world players like me who don't have full set of legendary armors and weapons to change build easily without need to grind for +8 hours every day just to get enough gold and/or materials to get full set of gear to make up to date build just to do basic PvE open world content before next balance update and do this same thing constantly.

I wouldnt really agree, as the gear sets remain the same really.

Power harbinger, regardless of the change implemented, Will use berserker, your not going to suddenly need a different set of gear, Same for condi.

Gear sets generally are set for entire roles, so Making Ele condi the best DPS suddenly wont change anything if ur a COndi Mesmer, u just swap the Gear to ur Elementalist and your good to go, theres very few builds that actually demand Specific stats although i know there are some which do exist and do require this. but I Dont think Ascended gear is hard enough to get to be worried here. 

Unless we're looking at things such as full infusions etc etc but these are things causals players wont really have to begin with. 

[DeceiverX.8361]

Reality is OP is correct, but there are no longer players in the competitive modes because it's been so bad for ten years that most of these communities have just outright quit, and the allowance of DPS meters and boss phase skips/power creep means metas are far too easy to establish and perfect.  PvE in GW2 is just strictly too easy/bare-bones. 

And people who wanted to play builds which just suck simply don't play anymore, either.

Feedback is going to be skewed in favor of people who still play.

[DeceiverX.8361]

20 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

3. Balance for LoL and DotA is far far far easier than for GW2. There are far less skills to balance, items to balance, interactions to balance. This makes it far easier to shuffle or adjust things. There are also far better ways to discourage play of "overpowered" champions in both games, by mere design of their competitive tournaments (characters being banned, denied by the other team, etc.)

This is comically false as someone who has played LoL and GW2 since their respective launches (and in LoL's case, beta).

The number of interactions in LoL is an order of magnitude higher than GW2 due to the sheer number of champions and power curves at any given game state due to the innate volatility of gold/stats/champion scalings/neutral buffs/map control/role options/pick and ban priority/role swap options/summoner and item interactions which play a *far* bigger role in determining how a champion can be balanced and designed than the mere trait/skill/relic selections in GW2.

GW2 balance, while way over the head of 99% of players in this community, is absolutely child's play compared to LoL in complexity.

ANet is just comically bad at balancing for PvP interactions or simply does not care, full stop.

[Cyninja.2954]

4 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

This is comically false as someone who has played LoL and GW2 since their respective launches (and in LoL's case, beta).

The number of interactions in LoL is an order of magnitude higher than GW2 due to the sheer number of champions and power curves at any given game state due to the innate volatility of gold/stats/champion scalings/neutral buffs/map control/role options/pick and ban priority/role swap options/summoner and item interactions which play a *far* bigger role in determining how a champion can be balanced and designed than the mere trait/skill/relic selections in GW2

Yes, LoL has a LOT more champions. Which matters little since for the most part, these champions are balanced individually. 

Most champions are also designed with a clear role in mind, occasionally more than 1 but never multiple. 

The same applies to items and here too, any outliers can and are adjusted.

GW2 is not only about trait/skill/relics. It's about runes/sigils/stats/skills/food/enhancement/role and all that in the context if game mode and more. The far more open nature on most of those elements makes balancing more challenging.

You are correct that LoL has more to individual smaller elements to balance, yet the interactions remain more streamlined and limited between those elements. Which can be seen every single time they release a new champion and how fast they can shift or alter that champions standing with just some minor adjustments.

Now if Riot were to balance every champion to be able to perform every role equally well, you might have an argument, but that's not what they do and it's not part of their balance philosophy.

4 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

GW2 balance, while way over the head of 99% of players in this community, is absolutely child's play compared to LoL in complexity.

ANet is just comically bad at balancing for PvP interactions or simply does not care, full stop.

The developer ability to balance or shape the game certainly plays into this.

At the same time are the forums full of know it all players which assjme they know how difficult (or easy) this game is to balance.

Edited May 28 by Cyninja.2954

[Beddo.1907]

There is a difference between Moba balance and MMORPG balance. 

[DeceiverX.8361]

34 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Yes, LoL has a LOT more champions. Which matters little since for the most part, these champions are balanced individually. 

Most champions are also designed with a clear role in mind, occasionally more than 1 but never multiple. 

The same applies to items and here too, any outliers can and are adjusted.

GW2 is not only about trait/skill/relics. It's about runes/sigils/stats/skills/food/enhancement/role and all that in the context if game mode and more. The far more open nature on most of those elements makes balancing more challenging.

You are correct that LoL has more to individual smaller elements to balance, yet the interactions remain more streamlined and limited between those elements. Which can be seen every single time they release a new champion and how fast they can shift or alter that champions standing with just some minor adjustments.

Now if Riot were to balance every champion to be able to perform every role equally well, you might have an argument, but that's not what they do and it's not part of their balance philosophy.

The developer ability to balance or shape the game certainly plays into this.

At the same time are the forums full of know it all players which assjme they know how difficult (or easy) this game is to balance.

Several of these statements are simply not true.  Most champions are designed with multiple roles, purposes, and builds in mind, and are balanced based both on specific implementations but also on high-level constructs on their performances in relation to others which may possibly be in various game situations at various times and gold differences in the game with consideration towards how that impacts the overall capability to win the match in a team environment spanning a massive roster.  There are a significant number of top/mid/support champions which are balanced for jungle, marksmen for bot/top, jungle for support/top/mid, support for top/jungle, and all the various combinations where possible.  Off the top of my head, Karthus has been balanced for all five roles, and even if champions aren't designed for all five, they are usually designed for the possibility of multiple.  And there aren't as many major roles in GW2, either.

Runes and Items in League are just as big a part of the equation as the champion kits themselves, wherein champion kits have been reworked/scrapped repeatedly due to these overarching systems.  The variables at play there are massive, because rune page combinations, item effects combinations, and scaling formulae across all champions sharing those choices are all considered collectively for nearly every change made in League.  The margins are strictly tighter in League, and doing so requires an even finer combing and better understanding of the impacts to the game wherein there's a whole deeper level of pacing which GW2 does not need to worry about.  Specs in GW2 are not balanced around their peak strength at the various levels based on how much in terms of resources are funneled into them across a wide span of skill capabilities of players.  They are in League, and things have been created and scrapped based on inconsistencies or overabundance based on play rates at disparate MMRs.

What you're describing is a *very* shallow understanding of the efforts which go into balancing champions for League.  Riot often makes mistakes, but they're quick to correct course, having good analysis on where the problems lay at their source.

[Cyninja.2954]

1 minute ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

Several of these statements are simply not true.  Most champions are designed with multiple roles, purposes, and builds in mind, and are balanced based both on specific implementations but also on high-level constructs on their performances in relation to others which may possibly be in various game situations at various times and gold differences in the game with consideration towards how that impacts the overall capability to win the match in a team environment spanning a massive roster.  There are a significant number of top/mid/support champions which are balanced for jungle, marksmen for bot/top, jungle for support/top/mid, support for top/jungle, and all the various combinations where possible.  Off the top of my head, Karthus has been balanced for all five roles, and even if champions aren't designed for all five, they are usually designed for the possibility of multiple.  And there aren't as many major roles in GW2, either.

True, I was oversimplifying here. LoL does enjoy the benefit of horizontal power progression across they champion pool to some degree and thus re-balancing champions only becomes an issue every few cycles.

You are also vastly over representing the balance efficiency though. How large is the pool of champions by now? 140 (actually had to google, it's 168)? Yet as far as competitive picks, that numbers shrinks drastically. That's in part due to asymmetrical balancing which riot does. They don't actually try to balance all champions equally, but instead in cycles.

Most champions are designed for 1 role, maybe 2. Them being viable in other roles is often compensated by player skill and them not being that far off.

There is also far less attributes to balance for. AP/AD and healing power being the primary 3. For a total of 3 skills and an elite. Maybe some fancy character passive. Interactions between champions are limited at best.

The same applies to items. In the end, most characters builds out of the same pool of items with variations of maybe 3-4 items here and there at best. Most AD carries will pick the same 4-6 items of a list of 10, the rest is meaningless as meaningful choice.

Sorry but you are vastly exaggerating the amount of balance which actually happens overall. Sure on an individual level there is a lot to balance, but given the limited interactions it is very foreseeable how a balance change will affect the outcome.

Quote

Runes and Items in League are just as big a part of the equation as the champion kits themselves, wherein champion kits have been reworked/scrapped repeatedly due to these overarching systems.  The variables at play there are massive, because rune page combinations, item effects combinations, and scaling formulae across all champions sharing those choices are all considered collectively for nearly every change made in League.  The margins are strictly tighter in League, and doing so requires an even finer combing and better understanding of the impacts to the game wherein there's a whole deeper level of pacing which GW2 does not need to worry about.  Specs in GW2 are not balanced around their peak strength at the various levels based on how much in terms of resources are funneled into them across a wide span of skill capabilities of players.  They are in League, and things have been created and scrapped based on inconsistencies or overabundance based on play rates at disparate MMRs.

That is actually correct and imo the largest aspect to balance. That's in fact the only aspect where I'd concede that LoL is even remotely challenging to balance. Yet even here, the same setups are often repeated.

At the same time reaching peak customization takes a fraction in LoL than it does in GW2 (which here would be the equivalent of being full legendary) and as such balance around a full rune page makes sense.

Quote

What you're describing is a *very* shallow understanding of the efforts which go into balancing champions for League.  Riot often makes mistakes, but they're quick to correct course, having good analysis on where the problems lay at their source.

They are quick to correct mistakes because their metrics show outliers. The interesting aspect is HOW they fix those mistakes and as mentioned, all it usually takes is adjusting 2-3 variables. That does not a complex system make.

[LadyKitty.6120]

To be honest, regarding GW2 PVE, Kitty finds the idea of cycling flavour of the month builds a flawed premise if the goal is to bring some new builds to play. If they're not already a viable option for playing, that has more to do with inadequate balancing on them and should instead be brought to same level as other viable options. They've worked a bunch towards that goal but they're still leaving some inferior options untouched atm. Worst offenders weapons-wise would probably be guardian's scepter and especially warrior's main-hand mace (only 1 update since 2014 as far as Kitty can remember). There's also some traits like warrior's Body Blow which would allow CC-based maces/hammer condi builds if buffed to relevancy.

But anyway, Kitty's main point is that if balancing was done well enough to make most of synergized viable in comparison, finding new ways to play wouldn't be due to balance issues anymore. People could ofc still make bad combinations by choosing stuff without any synergy (like condi weapon with power build or healing traits without healing skills/healing power) but that's something inherent to versatile multi-component systems and in that case it's an user error. And when balance is in excellent shape, there's plenty of playstyle options Kitty can tell. 99.9% of players likely have only touched the tip of the iceberg in that regard. At that point, to keep the interest up it's about creating new content to play those builds in which has kinda been the problem for harder-than-casual players.

Aside from metabuild powercreep having pushed plenty of off-meta builds into obsolution, one of Kitty's main problems personally is the lacking amount of instanced content and difficulty in most cases which is pushing lots of endgame community to just push the clear times to artificially create challenge for themselves which once again leads back to the problem of less real options due to off-meta non-viability in that mindset. Mediocre balance and lack of content for those who care about the balance is creating quite a vicious cycle.