The Current Boon Ball Meta and Balancing Suggestions

[Zyreva.1078]

9 minutes ago, ChrisWhitey.9076 said:

This sounds weird since this is the design of almost all mmos and other pvp games that have supports such as overwatch and league of legends. Also almost all of PvE requires stacking. Support has usually always peel and aoe limits in many games which is why they have the same mechanics everywhere.

There is a big difference between staying close for support and everyone - enemy and ally alike - standing on top of each other and just facetanking everything. It's an absurdity when looking at the original design of the combat system that was all about action and reaction, timing and movement, combos and actual coordination.

Support, coordiantion, stacking- it has all been a thing since release - yet gameplay used to look vastly different.

And while i personally have never been a big fan of large scale combat in this game, because the combat system, which is ultimatively what kept me in the game for so long, was not really designed for that sort of gameplay, i think the current meta appears to be the most boring and ridiculous it has ever been.

Edited July 22 by Zyreva.1078

[ChrisWhitey.9076]

1 minute ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

yet gameplay used to look vastly different.

This change is more how classes are played vs on release front line damage and back line support changed because front line supports like scrapper became a thing allowing for pirate ship group kiting. Then overtime more supports brought more and unique suitability to new play styles that if you don't have the coverage you are out of luck. This also was an issue with overwatch where 3 support "half the team" was the meta until they forced teams to be role locked to 2.

[Cuks.8241]

5 minutes ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

And while i personally have never been a big fan of large scale combat in this game, i think the current meta appears to be the most boring and ridiculous it has ever been.

The current meta is what most players currently play. I'm quite sure you can make a power focused comp that synergies well, learn it and you can crush with it if played well. Actually I know it because we did it not long ago, a new comp that was different and was very bursty and relied heavily on aggressive melee engagement and active mitigation in forms of blocks (no FB btw). And we rolled with it for quite some time before groups learned how to handle it. 

Lot's of people complain without actually trying to do something different. 

Moving together is very much common in large scale combat games. It is very pronounced in gw2 but I would say it's more out of the ordinary in PVE just because encounters don't make players spread enough. But in pvp modes it's quite common for various reasons some common to gw2 and some that are not applicable so much here like having a tank meat shield in front of your long range nukers. I mean it's not much different in real life combat.

[XenesisII.1540]

40 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

I dunno, why don't people who are lesser organized want to use powerful tools that the game makes available to them? If you're outnumbered that's one thing, but if you're intentionally choosing to be disorganized, and not coordinate, it's hardly the game's fault when somebody more prepared shows up and rolls you. Especially because the coordinated groups are going to find any solution available to them within the game mechanics.

If you nerf boonballs, they'll move on to the next tactics that reward organization and coordination, and then people will want to nerf that instead. And obviously, if you change the balance of your game so that coordination and organization don't matter, what's the point of it being a large-scale PvP game mode in an MMO. That sounds like a single player experience at that point, which isn't really what an MMO does.

Because not everyone wants to spend their 2 hours running mindlessly in a fat zerg steam rolling half empty maps, or force to run on a class/spec they don't enjoy. Yeah sure groups will always look for ways to get an advantage, it's the lines of where the advantages are given that is the problem.

Voice chat should be the main tool/advantage for organization and coordination, not the game also handing you bonuses because you decide to stack max numbers around you, this works fine for pve, but it becomes exponentially stupid in open pvp. If you want to run max numbers for extra mitigation on aoe target caps, that's fine, but your levels of defense should stay relatively the same if you were running as a smaller group. In the beginning of the game every class was given a set range of health for a reason, or they were missing mobility for a reason, and given a heal skill and two dodges to manage their own sustain, to balance out with the rest of the tools of the class provided. Over the years an enormous amount of group sustain options have been provided, and the only balance counters were..... nerf all the boon strips, nerf all the aoe damage, nerf the target caps, nerf all the siege.

Pvp should also be built around the concept of counters, if you use something to give you temporary power then I should have either an opportunity to prevent it, or to be able to remove it. In the other discussion it was stated that the invul tactics was boring and stopped game play and there was nothing an attacker could do about it, well what about classes that can use invuls too? that's boring and stops game play, but no one seems to want to apply the same logic. Same goes for alacrity not working on siege anymore because these have had their skill cooldowns set for a reason, well why isn't that logic applied to player skills to? Kitten even when they had the chrono tanks dominating in spvp they had to shut that down quickly because it was boring and not fun to fight, but in wvw it's ok to roll around with 50 tanks. Lines of balance are not respected anymore, and balance has overwhelmingly shifted to tanky sustain.

Also no one is asking to absolutely demolish organization out of the game, you guys act like the current boon ball is all the game ever had, and if you touch it suddenly wvw will crumble, stop panicking. Organized groups ran just as well before the boon ball, of course they had to actually move to a safe spot to sustain, and actually step out of aoes. Voice will also always be an advantage no matter what changes in the game play.

If all you organized want to play is tanky sustain and think wvw is only about 50 squads running around, then maybe anet should look into making a place for you all to fight each other privately, you know since you all constantly proclaim you want even competitive fights, because rolling with 50 over half empty maps isn't very competitive or interesting to the rest of us.

The mag cloud laughs at your last statements.

[A Hamster.2580]

1 hour ago, Sheff.4851 said:

I dunno, why don't people who are lesser organized want to use powerful tools that the game makes available to them? If you're outnumbered that's one thing, but if you're intentionally choosing to be disorganized, and not coordinate, it's hardly the game's fault when somebody more prepared shows up and rolls you. Especially because the coordinated groups are going to find any solution available to them within the game mechanics. If you nerf boonballs, they'll move on to the next tactics that reward organization and coordination, and then people will want to nerf that instead. And obviously, if you change the balance of your game so that coordination and organization don't matter, what's the point of it being a large-scale PvP game mode in an MMO. That sounds like a single player experience at that point, which isn't really what an MMO does.

If we nerf the current 4 tanky supports + 1 dps meta, whatever solution they move to next may be more manageable for roamers/cloud players or smaller outnumbered (but more skilled) groups to handle. Like the only way this meta can get worse is if it evolves to 5 tanky supports per party. I don't see how anyone can defend this current abhorrent meta.

Edited July 22 by A Hamster.2580

[coro.3176]

Even if you nerfed the concentration on cele/minstrels/whatever, it wouldn't solve the boon ball problem, or even do much at all. The core issue is that lots of builds kitten out boons constantly and share them with everyone. Also, they cleanse everyone around them too.

Example: 

Do you think a little reduced duration is going to put a dent in that kind of boon output? No. Not even close. And if it did, people would get concentration from other sources (food, gear, etc) and use that instead. Need a more drastic solution for this problem

1. Reduce or even remove shared boons from skills. It's fine if a build is tanky by itself. It's bad if a build makes everyone else within 600 range tanky by farting out boons.
2. Reduce or even remove shared cleanse. Same idea.

[kash.9213]

2 hours ago, Sheff.4851 said:

I dunno, why don't people who are lesser organized want to use powerful tools that the game makes available to them? If you're outnumbered that's one thing, but if you're intentionally choosing to be disorganized, and not coordinate, it's hardly the game's fault when somebody more prepared shows up and rolls you. Especially because the coordinated groups are going to find any solution available to them within the game mechanics. If you nerf boonballs, they'll move on to the next tactics that reward organization and coordination, and then people will want to nerf that instead. And obviously, if you change the balance of your game so that coordination and organization don't matter, what's the point of it being a large-scale PvP game mode in an MMO. That sounds like a single player experience at that point, which isn't really what an MMO does.

Adding to what I posted above in this thread, I don't think the players in a boon ball need to be nerfed even if hopefully boon durations and applications can be adjusted soon, but the game mode itself caters to them by funneling large groups of people into small areas under time constraints. I love large scale fights but not all of the time and especially when they feel almost scripted in the same places under the same conditions. I come prepared and I use the in game tools like Alert Target and I work with my team no matter who they are. But I still play casual half watching tv because that's my vibe after work and I'm not trying to spend 20 minutes in prep before blob take off to face plant another blob over and over. I still run around with the blob because the game mode will mash us all together in short order anyway and I'll work with everyone but I don't like being locked in. 

No boon ball is rolling me though. If I get pulled and burned hard it's because the opposite of that was happening. And they will probably get me because they'll have a few chances because there's not much else to do on those maps currently so that's where I'm at with my limited time after work. There's room for everyone in WvW but there's no mechanics to create a good spread so all of the different play styles and personalities are scrambling at the same spot to get their bags. It's not open world after all. We don't really need to nerf boon balls, but we can get smart about the rest of the game around them. If adjusting boons at all is considered a nerf, people should reflect on what exactly they're doing in those blobs.

Edited July 22 by kash.9213

[Draygo.9473]

The core enablers for boon ball are simply this:

Target cap on offensive abilities, this allows stacking tight

Stability easily obtained and plentiful. 

Unless you are talking about these two things I think you are just wasting your time. 

Personally I think we should rework CC and Stability in WvW. I would like to see a nerf to the range of single target pulls coupled with a stability stack cap in WvW. In addition all CC skills should become dodgable. The game should encourage players to actively dodge through or avoid big CCs and make stability a far more active skill. Probably would put Stab at a max stacks of 2-3. 

As far as target caps, I would like to see them increased, for ranged try upping to 10, for melee up it to 15. I know anet caps targets to solve lag but it feels like boonballs just throwing abilities into each other without any real effect causes more lag for a longer period of time. 

[Sheff.4851]

1 hour ago, coro.3176 said:

Even if you nerfed the concentration on cele/minstrels/whatever, it wouldn't solve the boon ball problem, or even do much at all. The core issue is that lots of builds kitten out boons constantly and share them with everyone. Also, they cleanse everyone around them too.

Example: 

1. Reduce or even remove shared boons from skills. It's fine if a build is tanky by itself. It's bad if a build makes everyone else within 600 range tanky by farting out boons.
2. Reduce or even remove shared cleanse. Same idea.

If you made both these changes, what's the point of running a comped squad, versus having a collection of 50 people running individually powerful Celestial builds? Coordination and comp are tools that players use to give them an advantage when fighting outnumbered against a larger, uncoordinated enemy force. These changes sound like they would turn the gamemode into "whoever has more bodies wins", which I don't think is the intended outcome here.

[latlat.4516]

Fristly : I agree alacrity should stay a marginal boon in WvW, and probably celestial stats should be largely nerfed. A big buff to boon removal/denial is something I quite like the sound of as well. 

 

But two remarks : 

• stop kidding yourselves, the meta right now is nowhere near as facetanking as it was 3 months ago. What we called "boonball" by then was litteraly minstrel mesmer/minstrel scourge and minstrel vindi in every sub, with a holosmith that could 100-0 anyone even with barrier. When 2 groups that are using the celemeta are "on top on each other', the first down -often in less than 20seconds, kiting phase included- dictates who wins because then you can snowball it. 
• I see a lot of people that are using the talk of the "boonball" as a way to attack players that are actually using builds working together, and not so much in solo. Last time I checked, WvW is a gamemode made for teamfights and advertised so. Why would even think of removing any interaction between builds ? That's just a biased, and sorry to say it like that, stupid, take from you.

 

[igmolicious.5986]

Personal opinion: the counter to zergs SHOULD be towers/keeps with seige. Make seige deal increased damage when hitting larger groups than when hitting smaller groups to encourage/force spreading out. Grant arrow carts the ability to strip a boon with #1 attack like cannons. Make attacks from seige weapons unblockable by anything that isn't another seige ability.

[ChrisWhitey.9076]

51 minutes ago, igmolicious.5986 said:

Personal opinion: the counter to zergs SHOULD be towers/keeps with seige. Make seige deal increased damage when hitting larger groups than when hitting smaller groups to encourage/force spreading out. Grant arrow carts the ability to strip a boon with #1 attack like cannons. Make attacks from seige weapons unblockable by anything that isn't another seige ability.

problem with this is keeps and towers exist as objectives for fighting and if you increase siege to be too strong you go back to having to nerf defense again because you are halting any progressive on field battles.

[coro.3176]

1 hour ago, Sheff.4851 said:

If you made both these changes, what's the point of running a comped squad, versus having a collection of 50 people running individually powerful Celestial builds? Coordination and comp are tools that players use to give them an advantage when fighting outnumbered against a larger, uncoordinated enemy force. These changes sound like they would turn the gamemode into "whoever has more bodies wins", which I don't think is the intended outcome here.

Coordination is like "pull around this corner. Smoke fields down. Blast, okay moving in 3.. 2.. 1 .. veils forward in 3..2..1.. Full dps on their flank.. now"

Comp is like "I need you to swap to firebrand because we're missing stab in group 3"

Coordination is interesting and fun. Comp, I could do without.

[ArchonWing.9480]

7 hours ago, Sheff.4851 said:

If support was over-tuned you wouldn't need four per party. As something becomes stronger, you need to stack less of it to maintain effectiveness. That's why most quad-support comps can get away with running just a handful of Holosmiths and Berserkers. Spike damage right now is very powerful, so you only need a few. Support, on the other hand, needs to get augmented with two different professions that provide barrier (Scourge and Scrapper) just so that groups can survive direct hits from Arc Dividers, Overheats, and Prime Light Beams. If you're upset that we're in a four-support meta, I'd be looking at barrier as the first problem, not boon access (and then shortly after that I'd look at Rite of the Great Dwarf, because Cele Renegade is a build that really should not exist given what it does).

It is not necessarily because support is too weak , but rather that it is better to put a support in the slot over anything else because supports generally scale better the bigger the numbers get.

People will always pick more consistent choices. Dps's on average are squishier than their support counterparts, and therefore there is a higher risk factor many groups won't take, and instead put people on a more idiot proof tanky support build.

And this is a bigger deal when it comes to open squads, because I trust most pug dps's about as far as I can throw them. I imagine most commanders trust them even less.

The reason for that is to stack enough for a critical mass where your party cannot die (at least for a very long time), and then the leftovers is damage. This results in a meta that to some is incredibly boring as with most bunker metas.

Furthermore, while some damage builds may be overtuned, it is also certain that the support heavy comps completely negates many damage builds, and rather you need those few overtuned damage builds to do much because most dps options simply are not viable. For example, anything that uses projectiles is DoA. But that doesn't mean damage as a whole is overtuned and the very least there is essentially no build diversity.

Edited July 22 by ArchonWing.9480

[Cael.3960]

2 hours ago, Sheff.4851 said:

If you made both these changes, what's the point of running a comped squad, versus having a collection of 50 people running individually powerful Celestial builds? Coordination and comp are tools that players use to give them an advantage when fighting outnumbered against a larger, uncoordinated enemy force. These changes sound like they would turn the gamemode into "whoever has more bodies wins", which I don't think is the intended outcome here.

Exactly. Nerf the blob, but the population imbalance remains. I feel like the 'boonball' discussion is like complaining about the snow on the peak of a mountain while ignoring the mountain it's sitting on. Boonball or not, more people mean more damage soak and more damage going out. 50 individually powerful builds linked via voice coms is still going to stomp 30 individually powerful builds with nothing but map-chat to tie them together. This was the case back at launch, long before comps and the interdependent synergy of today's meta became a thing. Guilds have had almost 12 years to adapt, evolve and min/max since then. Gamers are excellent at finding the most efficient path to greatest rewards; the boonball is an extension of that efficiency. 

Is it a good efficiency? That's a subject of debate. It certainly isn't where raw PPT is concerned, but where player-vs-player interactions are concerned it's very obviously achieved a dominance that's upsetting for those who refuse to engage in that gameplay. 

[Zyreva.1078]

34 minutes ago, Cael.3960 said:

Exactly. Nerf the blob, but the population imbalance remains. I feel like the 'boonball' discussion is like complaining about the snow on the peak of a mountain while ignoring the mountain it's sitting on. Boonball or not, more people mean more damage soak and more damage going out. 50 individually powerful builds linked via voice coms is still going to stomp 30 individually powerful builds with nothing but map-chat to tie them together. This was the case back at launch, long before comps and the interdependent synergy of today's meta became a thing. Guilds have had almost 12 years to adapt, evolve and min/max since then. Gamers are excellent at finding the most efficient path to greatest rewards; the boonball is an extension of that efficiency.

Ofc numbers always matter, and so does coordiantion. But right now big numbers are a lot less vulnerable vs smaller grps than they used to be and as a result it is pretty pointless to even attempt to fight a boon blob with smaller numbers, even if you have the better players, the better teamplay and would actually win with even numbers. Because it's just so easy to maintain perma boons with the right comp and straight up ignore many combat mechanics and facetank anything a smaller grp can throw at you. And anything that had the slightest chance at disrupting a blob got nerfhammered to oblivion.

[Sheff.4851]

2 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

Coordination is like "pull around this corner. Smoke fields down. Blast, okay moving in 3.. 2.. 1 .. veils forward in 3..2..1.. Full dps on their flank.. now"

Comp is like "I need you to swap to firebrand because we're missing stab in group 3"

Coordination is interesting and fun. Comp, I could do without.

I like that explanation more than pretty much any other explanation that I've heard, and I completely understand where you're coming from. But I think they are inextricable to some degree. In the example you gave, there's only a few professions that have access to smoke fields that also have competitive builds. Same with Veil -- and a big part of why Mesmer has been in virtually every WvW meta since the dawn of time is because it's the only profession that does anything even close to what Veil does (uncapped stealth).

In a perfect world, a balance environment would be diverse enough that you could achieve good coordination, without a strict comp. There would be three or four professions that could give Stability well enough, that a player could choose a profession that they enjoy playing to fill that coordination gap in group 3. And in fairness, the current balance environment is much better than it has been previously. For example, if group 3 needed a healer, Druid, Tempest, Scrapper, and Vindicator are all good enough to be a healer for a coordinated group, and that's very good build diversity that allows for coordination without requiring a strict comp. It's just not true for every role, and on that, there's room for improvement to allow groups to coordinate without requiring a hyper-specific comp.

The last thing that I would say on this is, a lot of comp is group dependent, and if you find that a group is asking you to play professions that you don't want to play, or has an overly restrictive comp, you can just leave that group and find another one. The guild that I play with, Knights of the Temple, absolutely runs a comp. But it's flexible. Chronomancer and Firebrand are both good enough for primary Stability in a party, the four healer professions that I listed above are good enough for secondary support roles, and the rest is just hitting minimum numbers -- bring enough Berserkers so that I have access to 2-3 Battle Standards, and after that, it doesn't really matter what damage profession you bring across Soulbeast, Vindicator, Berserker, Holosmith, etc. But that's just a choice that our group makes, in how we choose to run, and it's sufficient to be competitive against pretty much anybody else. It's not necessarily an imposition that's based in balance choices though.

[XenesisII.1540]

29 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

I like that explanation more than pretty much any other explanation that I've heard, and I completely understand where you're coming from. But I think they are inextricable to some degree. In the example you gave, there's only a few professions that have access to smoke fields that also have competitive builds. Same with Veil -- and a big part of why Mesmer has been in virtually every WvW meta since the dawn of time is because it's the only profession that does anything even close to what Veil does (uncapped stealth).

In a perfect world, a balance environment would be diverse enough that you could achieve good coordination, without a strict comp. There would be three or four professions that could give Stability well enough, that a player could choose a profession that they enjoy playing to fill that coordination gap in group 3. And in fairness, the current balance environment is much better than it has been previously. For example, if group 3 needed a healer, Druid, Tempest, Scrapper, and Vindicator are all good enough to be a healer for a coordinated group, and that's very good build diversity that allows for coordination without requiring a strict comp. It's just not true for every role, and on that, there's room for improvement to allow groups to coordinate without requiring a hyper-specific comp.

The last thing that I would say on this is, a lot of comp is group dependent, and if you find that a group is asking you to play professions that you don't want to play, or has an overly restrictive comp, you can just leave that group and find another one. The guild that I play with, Knights of the Temple, absolutely runs a comp. But it's flexible. Chronomancer and Firebrand are both good enough for primary Stability in a party, the four healer professions that I listed above are good enough for secondary support roles, and the rest is just hitting minimum numbers -- bring enough Berserkers so that I have access to 2-3 Battle Standards, and after that, it doesn't really matter what damage profession you bring across Soulbeast, Vindicator, Berserker, Holosmith, etc. But that's just a choice that our group makes, in how we choose to run, and it's sufficient to be competitive against pretty much anybody else. It's not necessarily an imposition that's based in balance choices though.

Pretty sure a group like yours would be able to run 4healers/1dps and still be able to kill all pugs and most comp groups, and if you somehow manage to run into another top tier boon ball, well pretty easy to switch a couple people back to dps specs for their class if you need a little extra burst from them. I've seen 4healer/1dps groups handle like 10-15 people easily for like 5-10mins. 🤷‍♂️

Speaking of battle standard, that's another big bonus for organized with the quick resses from f or skills, so even when you put in the work to down someone it's quickly negated cause some people pressed f nearby, pretty annoying when you're in lower numbers. Too many things to cover up mistakes. People wanted 1:1 rally, think it's time for 1:1 res too. 🤷‍♂️

Edited July 23 by XenesisII.1540

[Sheff.4851]

2 minutes ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Pretty sure a group like yours would be able to run 4healers/1dps and still be able to kill all pugs and most comp groups, and if you somehow manage to run into another top tier boon ball, well pretty easy to switch a couple people back to dps specs for their class if you need a little extra burst from them. I've seen 4healer/1dps groups handle like 10-15 people easily for like 5-10mins. 🤷‍♂️

Speaking of battle standard, that's another big bonus for organized with the quick resses from f or skills, so even when you put in the work to down someone it's quickly negated cause some people pressed f nearby, pretty annoying when you're in lower numbers. Too many things to cover up mistakes. People wanted 1:1 rally, think it's time for 1:1 res too. 🤷‍♂️

Yes, that's the benefit of coordination, as we are discussing. Our group uses strategy and coordination to win fights, with the point being that we don't adhere to a strict comp as some other groups do. Are your critiques directed more at the comp elements of this discussion, or the coordination elements?

[XenesisII.1540]

12 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

Yes, that's the benefit of coordination, as we are discussing. Our group uses strategy and coordination to win fights, with the point being that we don't adhere to a strict comp as some other groups do. Are your critiques directed more at the comp elements of this discussion, or the coordination elements?

I don't have a problem with coordination and think that should be the line between a good or bad group of players. The support side of comps is what I have problems with, I think they are highly over tuned with too much over lap, some specs are also able to just do too much at once with no real penalty for going either or in terms of roles, and with the amount of sustain options available and able to overlap. And to be honest I don't think it was a good design to have 1 spec perma support one spot, 9-10 specs clogging up 2 other spots, while you have 26 other specs fighting for 2 spots. Game has too much hybrid and not enough strict roles, but none of that can or will be changed. I just don't want 50 invincible tanks running around a map.

[Cuks.8241]

20 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

• Reduce or even remove shared boons from skills. It's fine if a build is tanky by itself. It's bad if a build makes everyone else within 600 range tanky by farting out boons.
• Reduce or even remove shared cleanse. Same idea.

You basically dumb down the game. At least if we talk about removing, because you just remove interactions between players.

Reduction, I agree.

BUT keep in mind. While you do probably decrease the disparity between pug clouds and many mediocre groups with reduction (if we talk about boon duration reduction). You actually increase the skill cap immensely. Now I know there are lot's of comments how boon balls and especially boon farting is mindless (and I kinda agree about boon farting). But many players that join a group already have big problems just following basic movement orders and actually moving properly let alone actually pressing the right buttons during engagement. 

You can see it in any pug discord group (which already consists of a bit more advanced players that are willing to go on discord). 3,2,1 go and immediately you have a tail. Tunnel vision, chasing, moving out of boon range, moving in front of comm. The most basic movement stuff. We have not even engaged an enemy and everyone is already all over the place, wasting dodges and CDs, putting light fields over fire fields...

Another example is spvp, even in gold most players are unable to focus target or even have awareness on what is going on on the map. 

And now you increase the skill cap, the requirements for coordination between players in a group to the point where you need to time sync on a player per player basis which also requires active communication of each player (this is already a thing in better groups but not for basic boon coverage or cleanses). Well you get a more competitive environment. But gatekeeping will go through the roof. You can see already that many commanders just don't want to run any form of pug groups. Now imagine if requirements go up.

[igmolicious.5986]

21 hours ago, ChrisWhitey.9076 said:

problem with this is keeps and towers exist as objectives for fighting and if you increase siege to be too strong you go back to having to nerf defense again because you are halting any progressive on field battles.

Counter point to this: split large zergs into smaller zergs and hit multiple objectives to force defenders to split as well (or decide what they're willing to sacrifice), which helps with breaking large boon balls into more manageable smaller boon balls in at least some instances. Seige already has a 1 hour decay timer, so unless you have people that are willing to let participation drop it's already a given that seige on less important objectives is going to decay. I think it might even be a good idea to lower that decay timer to 30 minutes to force decisions like that more often. Just being able to sit and outheal seige while you open a wall from right up next to it isn't engaging for either side tho, and one of the big complaints about boon balls. Defenders SHOULD have an advantage if actively defending an objective with seige, rather than it just being a minor inconvenience to the attackers -- attackers have the options of attacking multiple objectives or even attacking a single objective from multiple sides to spread out defender resources. The whole objective is to spread out fights into smaller forces, and it's not like attackers can't build things like arrow carts and ballistae themselves to help with defending their seige position(s).

[Mike.3196]

On 7/22/2024 at 11:06 AM, Sheff.4851 said:

I dunno, why don't people who are lesser organized want to use powerful tools that the game makes available to them? If you're outnumbered that's one thing, but if you're intentionally choosing to be disorganized, and not coordinate, it's hardly the game's fault when somebody more prepared shows up and rolls you. Especially because the coordinated groups are going to find any solution available to them within the game mechanics. If you nerf boonballs, they'll move on to the next tactics that reward organization and coordination, and then people will want to nerf that instead. And obviously, if you change the balance of your game so that coordination and organization don't matter, what's the point of it being a large-scale PvP game mode in an MMO. That sounds like a single player experience at that point, which isn't really what an MMO does.

Your thinking is flawed cause if what your saying is what it should be then  why isn't the game alive currently, currently it's just boonballs  dominanting any grp and no cloud or pug grps can do anything. There a reason the game dieing is cause your forced to be organized to fight grps . Before you weren't and a cloud could kill a boon blob easily. But anet doesn't want to be game to be competitive they want to be super easy and casual which is killing there game so.

[Mike.3196]

On 7/21/2024 at 3:27 PM, Hotride.2187 said:

So funny to read cele made its way to zergs too. Always before in the cele threads I read, from players who clearly are not biased, that cele is not used in zergs and wvw is about zergs, so cele is fine. Would you look at that development.

Anyway, if you want to reduce boonball effectiveness, just undo the changes that deliberately made the boonball stronger - bring back 10 target caps for AOEs, bring back boonrip, bring back pre 2020 power dmg. Honestly, bring back one support per party.

You tell me if any one of these is likeky.

If you think cele is fine then you don't actually play the game cause cele single handly and killing small scale and roaming. Other thing is if every single person you fight is cele and only cele that's a balance issue

[Hesione.9412]

5 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

You basically dumb down the game. At least if we talk about removing, because you just remove interactions between players.

Reduction, I agree.

BUT keep in mind. While you do probably decrease the disparity between pug clouds and many mediocre groups with reduction (if we talk about boon duration reduction). You actually increase the skill cap immensely. Now I know there are lot's of comments how boon balls and especially boon farting is mindless (and I kinda agree about boon farting). But many players that join a group already have big problems just following basic movement orders and actually moving properly let alone actually pressing the right buttons during engagement. 

You can see it in any pug discord group (which already consists of a bit more advanced players that are willing to go on discord). 3,2,1 go and immediately you have a tail. Tunnel vision, chasing, moving out of boon range, moving in front of comm. The most basic movement stuff. We have not even engaged an enemy and everyone is already all over the place, wasting dodges and CDs, putting light fields over fire fields...

Another example is spvp, even in gold most players are unable to focus target or even have awareness on what is going on on the map. 

And now you increase the skill cap, the requirements for coordination between players in a group to the point where you need to time sync on a player per player basis which also requires active communication of each player (this is already a thing in better groups but not for basic boon coverage or cleanses). Well you get a more competitive environment. But gatekeeping will go through the roof. You can see already that many commanders just don't want to run any form of pug groups. Now imagine if requirements go up.

The small group of players scraped together, to counter, are going to move as one? With a huge advantage because the ball has a tail? Seriously?