What are the classes the devs dont play so i can avoid wasting my time.

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

Again, players are conflating/equivocating their perception of the game with a developer's.  In the same manner that a painter does not play favorites with a specific brush stroke, neither do the developers.  The idea that there is "class favoritism" from a development perspective is just absurd.  The creator views their creation in totality.  

Yes, there are some professions I play more than others.  I still don't care what gets nerfed or buffed as I enjoy every profession.  More accurately, I get bored playing the same profession too many days in a row so switch out frequently, just to keep the combat experience fresh.

You must have not been here when the old balance lead got caught with his hand in the cookie jar buffing the builds he liked and neglecting everything else. You're claiming something doesn't happen when we know it did.

I think it is at least more equitable now, but there are still some that are in better shape than others. You seem to regard playing every profession as meaning it doesn't matter to you where the nerfs and buffs fall - for me, it means I know very well which have bigger problems than others, and want to see those problems fixed so I can enjoy them more.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

9 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

 

 

 

Again, players are conflating/equivocating their perception of the game with a developer's.  In the same manner that a painter does not play favorites with a specific brush stroke, neither do the developers.  The idea that there is "class favoritism" from a development perspective is just absurd.  The creator views their creation in totality.  

Yes, there are some professions I play more than others.  I still don't care what gets nerfed or buffed as I enjoy every profession.  More accurately, I get bored playing the same profession too many days in a row so switch out frequently, just to keep the combat experience fresh.

 

 

I didn't have a comment on player versus developer perception of the game, only your concept for having a main character. And if you don't think some devs have mains, you don't watch the live streams very diligently. CMC has flat out stated that he's an ele main now. A previous dev was caught showing class favoritism and was replaced. It happens. It DID happen.

[Rogue.8235]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

You must have not been here when the old balance lead got caught with his hand in the cookie jar buffing the builds he liked and neglecting everything else. You're claiming something doesn't happen when we know it did.

I think it is at least more equitable now, but there are still some that are in better shape than others. You seem to regard playing every profession as meaning it doesn't matter to you where the nerfs and buffs fall - for me, it means I know very well which have bigger problems than others, and want to see those problems fixed so I can enjoy them more.

 

2 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

I didn't have a comment on player versus developer perception of the game, only your concept for having a main character. And if you don't think some devs have mains, you don't watch the live streams very diligently. CMC has flat out stated that he's an ele main now. A previous dev was caught showing class favoritism and was replaced. It happens. It DID happen.

 

I'll stand corrected.  It's unfathomable to me that something so unprofessional could occur.  It's an egregiously idiotic and immature thing to do.  Like a baker preparing a multi-course meal and intentionally sabotaging the appetizer they prepared simply so that people would be more likely enjoy the dessert, it's just nonsensical.  I would ask for citations, but the two posters appear confident enough and I don't see any dissenting post other than my own; and my post was based on the assumption of basic professional standards.

However

I don't see a compelling reason to conflate the misdeeds of two individuals with the entire development team.  In my field, there was an employee that did something egregiously stupid, which resulted not only in loss of accreditation and disbarment, but also incarceration (case files were kept in a residence which violates basically every federal law as well as a constitutional amendment).  It's unfathomably bad, but there is absolutely no reason to believe anyone else would do such a thing, much less be a systemic issue.

So, how is the actions of two individuals evidence of a systemic issue?  Additionally, with the massive obfuscation of forum opinion on what must be balanced, what is balanced, what isn't balanced, what must be nerfed, what must be buffed, etc.; how is the forum base able to determine that such systemic bias exists?  The forums can't even agree on what is systemically wrong with balance, much less accurately define systemically problematic business processes in software development.

 

There isn't a cohesive presentation of evidence identifying and demonstrating that a development bias exists in the current state of the game.  

Except that mesmer is required to be nerfed in any way every patch.  I think it's a law of nature or something.  Actually thinking about it, I believe that was Euclid's fifth postulate.

 

[Gaiawolf.8261]

8 minutes ago, Rogue.8235 said:

 

 

I'll stand corrected.  It's unfathomable to me that something so unprofessional could occur.  It's an egregiously idiotic and immature thing to do.  Like a baker preparing a multi-course meal and intentionally sabotaging the appetizer they prepared simply so that people would be more likely enjoy the dessert, it's just nonsensical.  I would ask for citations, but the two posters appear confident enough and I don't see any dissenting post other than my own; and my post was based on the assumption of basic professional standards.

However

I don't see a compelling reason to conflate the misdeeds of two individuals with the entire development team.  In my field, there was an employee that did something egregiously stupid, which resulted not only in loss of accreditation and disbarment, but also incarceration (case files were kept in a residence which violates basically every federal law as well as a constitutional amendment).  It's unfathomably bad, but there is absolutely no reason to believe anyone else would do such a thing, much less be a systemic issue.

So, how is the actions of two individuals evidence of a systemic issue?  Additionally, with the massive obfuscation of forum opinion on what must be balanced, what is balanced, what isn't balanced, what must be nerfed, what must be buffed, etc.; how is the forum base able to determine that such systemic bias exists?  The forums can't even agree on what is systemically wrong with balance, much less accurately define systemically problematic business processes in software development.

 

There isn't a cohesive presentation of evidence identifying and demonstrating that a development bias exists in the current state of the game.  

Except that mesmer is required to be nerfed in any way every patch.  I think it's a law of nature or something.  Actually thinking about it, I believe that was Euclid's fifth postulate.

 

To be clear, I think it was only one individual, and we are both thinking of the same one. I don't begrudge developers having a main character or class tho. Many devs also like to play the game, and they are naturally going to have favorites. Even when working on class balance, they might have some they prefer to work on more than others. That's just human nature. I have some projects I like more than others at work. I just hope the devs are good about putting on their unbiased dev hats and working as a team with collective output, to avoid biases coming out in game balancing. They can have favorites and still be conscientious about fairness between classes.

 

[Triptaminas.4789]

7 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

 

 

I'll stand corrected.  It's unfathomable to me that something so unprofessional could occur.  It's an egregiously idiotic and immature thing to do.  Like a baker preparing a multi-course meal and intentionally sabotaging the appetizer they prepared simply so that people would be more likely enjoy the dessert, it's just nonsensical.  I would ask for citations, but the two posters appear confident enough and I don't see any dissenting post other than my own; and my post was based on the assumption of basic professional standards.

However

I don't see a compelling reason to conflate the misdeeds of two individuals with the entire development team.  In my field, there was an employee that did something egregiously stupid, which resulted not only in loss of accreditation and disbarment, but also incarceration (case files were kept in a residence which violates basically every federal law as well as a constitutional amendment).  It's unfathomably bad, but there is absolutely no reason to believe anyone else would do such a thing, much less be a systemic issue.

So, how is the actions of two individuals evidence of a systemic issue?  Additionally, with the massive obfuscation of forum opinion on what must be balanced, what is balanced, what isn't balanced, what must be nerfed, what must be buffed, etc.; how is the forum base able to determine that such systemic bias exists?  The forums can't even agree on what is systemically wrong with balance, much less accurately define systemically problematic business processes in software development.

 

There isn't a cohesive presentation of evidence identifying and demonstrating that a development bias exists in the current state of the game.  

Except that mesmer is required to be nerfed in any way every patch.  I think it's a law of nature or something.  Actually thinking about it, I believe that was Euclid's fifth postulate.

 

It's more than one, when was the last discord leaks? Like year ago or smtg I think, favoritism is still there. 

Stuff like humility signet in wvw only lmao... it's just... how much evidence u want? That they twll it your face?..guys... u not new, stop coping. Its systemic issue, I know it, u know it, everyone who actually tracks what's going on knows it. It is how it is, just accept it, it's proven more than once, leaks happened more than for one team.

No more cope please, open your eyes. 

Edited August 30 by Triptaminas.4789

[draxynnic.3719]

12 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

I'll stand corrected.  It's unfathomable to me that something so unprofessional could occur.  It's an egregiously idiotic and immature thing to do.  Like a baker preparing a multi-course meal and intentionally sabotaging the appetizer they prepared simply so that people would be more likely enjoy the dessert, it's just nonsensical.  I would ask for citations, but the two posters appear confident enough and I don't see any dissenting post other than my own; and my post was based on the assumption of basic professional standards.

However

I don't see a compelling reason to conflate the misdeeds of two individuals with the entire development team.  In my field, there was an employee that did something egregiously stupid, which resulted not only in loss of accreditation and disbarment, but also incarceration (case files were kept in a residence which violates basically every federal law as well as a constitutional amendment).  It's unfathomably bad, but there is absolutely no reason to believe anyone else would do such a thing, much less be a systemic issue.

So, how is the actions of two individuals evidence of a systemic issue?  Additionally, with the massive obfuscation of forum opinion on what must be balanced, what is balanced, what isn't balanced, what must be nerfed, what must be buffed, etc.; how is the forum base able to determine that such systemic bias exists?  The forums can't even agree on what is systemically wrong with balance, much less accurately define systemically problematic business processes in software development.

 

There isn't a cohesive presentation of evidence identifying and demonstrating that a development bias exists in the current state of the game.  

Except that mesmer is required to be nerfed in any way every patch.  I think it's a law of nature or something.  Actually thinking about it, I believe that was Euclid's fifth postulate.

 

Like Gaiawolf said, it was just one guy. I think a large part of the reason why we have a team now rather than just one person - so there's a bit more accountability. There had been a strong suspicion of bad play (much more than there is now), and then someone leaked several pages of a private discord that removed all doubt (eg alacmirage exists because he didn't like axe and preferred staff, so he decided to massively buff staff so it would become the primary mirage weapon - he also buffed engineer rifle through the roof because he didn't like kits). It was a pretty big scandal at the time (shortly after the patch where warriors were given quickness... through having to carry banners around).

At the moment, though, I think Hanlon's Razor probably does apply, with an element that I think there are still areas where they're still playing catchup from the previous guy's neglect even after two expansions. If anything, there might be overcompensating, since CMC is an elementalist main, and while elementalist has had a few boosts such as the sceptre rework, on the whole it feels like one of the professions that the dev team as a whole seems to have a bit of a "do we have to?" response with when it comes to new content.

[Bleikopf.2491]

I cannot say much about other classes as I only play Elementalist.

I'd say there is a difference in how the devs, most players, and the people on the forums see the class.
People on the forums are not your average player. They're a vocal minority.

The Elementalist class had some design shifts over the years. In the beginning there was a bigger focus on combos. Combos are now powercrept and not as integral to the game anymore. Many skills now give similar pay-out just by pressing a button. E.g.,  Frozen Ground now even gives the Frost Aura by itself, which used to be comboed with Leap Finishers in WvW.
There also used to be Fury blasting, which has been removed.
Auras are now more important than before. Catalyst made Combos more important again, but only on a surface level. You combo so you can get Auras.

The different Attunements have also been solidified over the years.
Vigor is a boon that was exclusive to the Fire attunement. Piercing Shards gives the illusion of offensive power in Water, wholly underused.
There used to be an idea that Fire could be defensive and Water offensive.
Somehow, Fire is now always the main damage attunement and Water the healing attunement. It turned into a Pyromancer class, not an Elementalist.
Spear gets worse. The long range glass cannon has a lot of healing, but not a single source of Vulnerability in water.
Fire is again the most damaging attunement, but has almost no Burning to work with Pyromancer's Training and no Fire Fields for Persisting Flames either.

Pistol is also a thing. Only projectiles, very clearly a Condition focused weapon.
Yet not a single damaging condition on Air, because Air traditionally is the power/crit attunement.

I would not go so far as to say that the devs don't understand Elementalist. They have their own vision on what it should be, and many people on the forums are hanging onto an older idea of an Elementalist. Yet, the 2012 Elementalist is still deeply ingrained in the class, casting a big shadow over every new expansion.
Begrudgingly, every new weapon gets their 12/20 skills. They add a shallow gimmick on top so the weapon seems to have more depth than it does. And then they ignore the traitlines as hard as they can, so they don't even have to think about any synergies between traits and weapon skills.

[xellink.7568]

Having played the game since launch, I would say that balance has progressed leap and bounds since release, but it looks like it might become 'too balanced' and homogenised if the devs continue on the current trajectory. 

Release - Berserker's era

In the early days, there was a point in time where everything in PVE was berserker's. Buildings and structures did not take condi damage. You could get really stuck on the wrong build. Dungeons weren't particularly challenging and people already memorised all the spawn points and red circles when the game was 2 years old.

2015-2017 - Niche Role era

When HOT was released, and raids and instanced content became a thing, people realised that they needed to respect forced exclusive class mechanics. Although this helped diversity, it also limited it severely. Druid was the only viable healer, with tempest being a close compromise. Raids were added to the game, and composition of teams included things like spotter, banner slave, boon mesmer. None of these niche roles exist now. Essentially the only 'required classes' were chrono, druid, tempest and warrior. Raids were hard, and a player with 50LI would consider themselves average. Revenants and guardians were sometimes brought because they added protection and some groups are willing to sacrifice one ele, but that means lower DPS! Hammer guardian was the first auto attack build to exist in that regard, it was a very entry level build that new players could latch onto.

If you took engineer, necromancer, thief to a raid, you better have a lot of LI, or prepared to be kicked. Some especs were simply not worth playing at all while abused and unbalanced builds were allowed to exist for many years. Gunflame (2015) was only nerfed in 2020, because it has one-shot too many players in WvW.

2017-2019 - Goodbye Competitive modes

Druid dominated the heal meta from 2015 to 2020, with firebrand and scourge becoming more popular later on. Anet did try to balance the game but the class design was whack. When POF was added in 2017, a lot of the classes were so powerful, they obliterated the competitive game modes. The devs were never good at balancing, you can tell looking at the patches from 2015-2019, even if there were many patches, none of them actually 'balanced' the game because these classes were never designed to be balanced from the get go. 

2019-2020 - Dead era

From 2019-2020, the devs were very passive during this period of time, as though they had given up on the game. They would allow unbalanced builds to dominate for years and underwhelmed builds were ignored. Spellbreaker was one of them, being nerfed into oblivion, and for a period of time 2020-2022, it was an unplayable class in all modes. Firebrand was referred to as the god-emperor during this period in time. 

2021-2022 - Revitalization era

2021, Anet started balancing the game more aggressively. This is most likely in preparation for EOD. When EOD was released in 2022, they did not wait for years to implement changes like before. They killed off overperforming builds (rifle mech within 6 months, deadeye within a few weeks), added more options such that god-emperor's fall from grace had a soft landing, by adding a new god-emperor, Herald. They allowed every class to do alacrity and quickness and most players saw the rework as positive. The devs communicated more now too!

2023-2024 - Homogenization

With further iterations of the boon rework, all classes are now playable (except catalyst).  But with reworks, there is good and bad. Just because something worked well once doesn't mean you need to keep doing it over and over again. There are more mid-tier and entry level easy access auto attack and mash potato builds!

Auto Attack Builds - Mechanist, Deadeye, Dragonhunter, but how many of these actually interact with the core class mechanics?

1. Mechanist - No kits.
2. Deadeye - No stealth attacks, no stolen skills. Quick deadeye is like a pez candy dispenser. 
3. Dragonhunter - No need to use virtues. 

Mash Potato Builds - Virtuoso, Soulbeast, Fire Tempest

1. Virtuoso - No clones.
2. Soulbeast - No pet
3. Fire Tempest - No element swap

With the recent patch preview, it looks like Anet is going to strip some class identity which they feel is annoying to balance. I hope that we don't lose too mcuh as we approach a new era: 2025-2026

2025-2026 - Competitive?

[Captain Crapface.7528]

On 8/14/2024 at 12:41 PM, Panda.1967 said:

Mesmer…

I want some of whatever you smoke to make Mr. Im-Invoulnerable-For-Longer-Than-The-Fight-Lasts seem bad or unfavoured by the devs to you.

[Captain Crapface.7528]

On 8/30/2024 at 4:58 PM, Rogue.8235 said:

It's unfathomably bad, but there is absolutely no reason to believe anyone else would do such a thing, much less be a systemic issue.

You know, people somehow get hired and promoted, and people, espechally sheitty people tend to favour likeminded individuals over those they disagre with.

There's pretty much a guarantee sheitty pearson at the company will work secretly under the table to replace deacent people in their surroundings with sheitty people like themselves, so sheitty pearson on the team can lead to systemic issue should that pearson succed.

Look at how title of "Community Manager" became synanonimous with insame politicaly-driven pseudosociopathic losers and you'll understend what I'm worried about.

If people on the balance team quit because ot bias within the office, and were replaced with biast voices, or uncritical yes-men, we mey have a problem.

God I hope, nothing like this occured.

[Mithral.8516]

On 8/15/2024 at 6:27 AM, Supernova Starr.2069 said:

Not only that, they don't know how to develop Engineer elite specs as well, scrapper, holo and mech seems 3 different classes

That's.... that's the whole point of elite specs. Engaging with the profession mechanic in a different way. For some, like virtuoso or mechanist, it's about changing the profession mechanic radically. This is a good thing, providing more variety of playstyles and flavor.

[draxynnic.3719]

15 hours ago, Mithral.8516 said:

That's.... that's the whole point of elite specs. Engaging with the profession mechanic in a different way. For some, like virtuoso or mechanist, it's about changing the profession mechanic radically. This is a good thing, providing more variety of playstyles and flavor.

This. Although in Engineer's case, I think there is a bit of a mismatch in that core engineer and scrapper are mostly fairly grounded in steampunk, while holosmith and golemancer go into full-on magitech. Including the golem apparently having more advanced weapons than anything the engineer can use themselves apart from the holoforge. Not sure if the problem there is with the elite specs or whether core engineer should have more magitech, though. 

[Mithral.8516]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

This. Although in Engineer's case, I think there is a bit of a mismatch in that core engineer and scrapper are mostly fairly grounded in steampunk, while holosmith and golemancer go into full-on magitech. Including the golem apparently having more advanced weapons than anything the engineer can use themselves apart from the holoforge. Not sure if the problem there is with the elite specs or whether core engineer should have more magitech, though. 

I totally see what you mean. I do actually appreciate that, though. I think they're great representations of how the corresponding regions might engage with technology. Except maybe Holosmith... hard to imagine any form of engi coming from there.

[Gendalfs.7521]

On 9/20/2024 at 9:40 AM, Captain Crapface.7528 said:

You know, people somehow get hired and promoted, and people, espechally sheitty people tend to favour likeminded individuals over those they disagre with.

You mean like streamers promoting streamers? 😄

[draxynnic.3719]

20 hours ago, Mithral.8516 said:

I totally see what you mean. I do actually appreciate that, though. I think they're great representations of how the corresponding regions might engage with technology. Except maybe Holosmith... hard to imagine any form of engi coming from there.

Yeah, holosmith is really just asura holotech from the core game and season 1, they just brought in the 'powered by Zephyrite sun crystals' to give it some link to Elona.

I think ArenaNet has been moving towards adding magitech to core, based on the theme of shortbow, it's just that even post-rework shortbow is still a little weird, and everything else that's been introduced since the original mostly-non-magitech-using theme of engineer has been a melee weapon. Which, since the kits are also non-magitech makes it hard to really lean into the magitech angle without ending up as a full melee build.