Balancing for flavour and diversity instead of homogeneity

[Mistwraithe.3106]

I posted something similar in the October 8 preview post but there are 500 replies on a diverse range of topics there and I'm curious how people feel about this particular topic.

It feels to me like the current balance team doesn't value profession flavour and diversity all that strongly.

Their main goal is presumably to make it so that all professions are equally viable and can perform a decent range of things. I feel this is largely sensible and probably fine BUT I think they also need to have a secondary goal of making sure that the profession flavour remains strong.

Too often in recent times IMO the balance team has run into a profession/elite feature which is unique and provides a lot of flavour (Scourge Transfusion being the current example) and their solution has been to rip away the core feature which gives it the flavour and uniqueness. The long term effect of doing this is that all professions/elites lose a lot of their identifying flavour and end up more homogenous or cookie cutter.

I want the balance team to regard that flavour and uniqueness as critical and for them to try as hard as they can to find solutions which balance outliers while still retaining as much as possible of that flavour.

Am I alone in this?

[Gaiawolf.8261]

Quote

Profession / elite flavour is relatively unimportant, making all professions have broadly similar capabilities is critical

This option doesn't make much sense. Since profession flavor =/= capability. Classes can have similar capabilities but execute them with their own unique flavor, playstyles, themes, etc. 

I guess by default, I pick option neither? Because I think the team should respect their flavors, but give them all similar capabilities so I can play what I want how I want to play it. 

Edited Sunday at 04:21 AM by Gaiawolf.8261

[Mistwraithe.3106]

The options were meant to be about relative importance. Given for simplicity I only gave 3 options it isn't a big surprise if some people's opinions don't mesh with any of them.

[draxynnic.3719]

6 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

This option doesn't make much sense. Since profession flavor =/= capability. Classes can have similar capabilities but execute them with their own unique flavor, playstyles, themes, etc. 

I guess by default, I pick option neither? Because I think the team should respect their flavors, but give them all similar capabilities so I can play what I want how I want to play it. 

Pretty much what I was thinking. A large part of the manifesto was the idea that any profession could play in any role, and the profession you chose was more a matter of choosing how you performed in a role rather than what roles you could perform in.

On the other hand, this isn't a "people should still be begging for me to bring my chrono with quickness and alacrity monopoly" thread. Things like mesmer portals, necromancer transfusion, and so on do create an environment where any profession can fill most or all of the primary roles, but there are still differences in what different professions bring to the proverbial table that contributes to their, well, identity. So one could have the position that while the major roles should be able to be filled by any profession, it's good to have ancillary capabilities that are more profession-specific so that there's a difference between your heal alac being a scourge, chrono, tempest, mechanist, or druid.

Which does bring me to...

6 hours ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

The options were meant to be about relative importance. Given for simplicity I only gave 3 options it isn't a big surprise if some people's opinions don't mesh with any of them.

I think you might have made them a bit too simplistic here. When I saw the title, I was expecting this to be another "They should roll back quickness/alacrity access to enforce class roles!" thread. It appears that your position is more nuanced than that, but I for one would be hesitant to vote in support lest the people who do want profession monopolies back take it as a win. I think there's a degree to which both retaining profession flavour and ensuring that the "bring the player, not the profession" philosophy is broadly fulfilled are essential, which requires striking a balance. As a result, my position is neither the strong alignment with one side or the other as indicated by the first two options, nor is it indifference as implied by the third, but instead I have an active position of balancing between both.

In that context, regarding the specific example referenced in this thread: I think it is losing some identity without a real corresponding gain in the "bring the player" aspect. Transfusion is nice to have, but it hasn't been pushing other heal builds out of the meta, because other heal builds have other things that are also nice to have. Mind you, the motivation does seem to be a specific issue it was presenting in WvW gameplay, rather than looking to give all professions broadly similar capabilities as implied by the thread title and poll options. So in this case I don't think it's a "flavour and diversity instead of homogeneity" issue, it's simply that they decided that a particular effect is just a little too good. Scourge will probably still be the best resser without it, although pugskinner is probably going to become that much more painful for people with higher ping.

[Glott.7239]

I've noticed for i while now that unique, intresting or flavorfull mechanics and skills, of may professions a getting striped out or watered down in flavor of "balancing". The development direction since SotO also contributes to this. Giving "new"(/old) Weapons to everyone, every single expansion will eventually lead to every one being able to use everything which i'd personaly find a bit boring. The "Class Fantasy" is an important part of ever RPG and making every class feel very samey if almost equivalent to deleting the concept of classes altogether.

Now, i do get were this approach comming from and believe me i don't want to go back to the old "mirror comp" days of HoT. Some things like Quickness and Alacrity are so essential that only one profession providing them wan't work. I'd almost say it was a mistake to introduce these two in this form in the first place but since it's to late to remove them now so every profession needs access to them.

The other big offender one was "Stat Auras" like the old "Empower Allies" and "Spotter". I also now that the boon system is kinda based on the Idea to give everyone "the same tools" but using them in a different way to achieve roughly the same outcome, in order to make transitioning to a different proffesion much easier. I really like this idea and but if every class can do it all anyways than there is no reason to switch in the first place.

The bigges problem i've identified with the examples given is that Quickness, Alac and Aura, where by design very usefull everywere and all the time so naturally you allway want to bring someone how can provide them. However, this is not the case with for example the Transfusion trait, whos recently annonce nerf (or rather near deletion) i believe inspired this threat. I admit Transfusion is very good in some places, maybe even TO good. How ever the emphasis ther should also be an SOME. The trait becomes totaly useless if noone is going down. On some encounters it simpely does not work due to positioning requirements or frequent splinting. You simpely don't see it being user everywere all the time and it drops of fast in higher tier groups. Howerver an important factor is also that this trait is VERY thematic for necro as the "Master of life and death. Not merely healing people but instad controlling the brink to the afterlife and beeing the one who's deciding who crosses it, when and where." or in short it's great flavor.

This is even more importen because i feel like may of the other typical "Necromancy things" a Necromancer does have already been compromised on.

Life stealing or Life siphoning, a typical necromancer trope, has been kinda "meh" in this game ever since lauch, probably for balancing consers as mechanics like this have a tendency to get out ouf hand pretty quickly. Howerver i'm happy to see this is getting redefine a little but with newer weapons like Sword and Speer even thoght i still think it's way to little.

The other one is Minnions who are another staple of the Necromancer fantasy in basicly every other game and are pretty lackluster in GW2. Again i kinda get it, this is probably to keep AFK farming and Bots in check, but all that didn't really keep them from doing it anyway in the past. I also understand that it's pretty unfun to just get zergd down by a bunch of AI minnons in anything PvP. There however has to be a way to make minnion gameplay more engaging and "active". It doesn't need to be any good in PvP or total braindead in PvE but the way it is now it's little more than a meme.

Anyway, that was a wall of text. So, tl;dr: "Don't make everything feel and do the same thing, please!"

[Gaiawolf.8261]

8 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Pretty much what I was thinking. A large part of the manifesto was the idea that any profession could play in any role, and the profession you chose was more a matter of choosing how you performed in a role rather than what roles you could perform in.

On the other hand, this isn't a "people should still be begging for me to bring my chrono with quickness and alacrity monopoly" thread. Things like mesmer portals, necromancer transfusion, and so on do create an environment where any profession can fill most or all of the primary roles, but there are still differences in what different professions bring to the proverbial table that contributes to their, well, identity. So one could have the position that while the major roles should be able to be filled by any profession, it's good to have ancillary capabilities that are more profession-specific so that there's a difference between your heal alac being a scourge, chrono, tempest, mechanist, or druid.

Which does bring me to...

I think you might have made them a bit too simplistic here. When I saw the title, I was expecting this to be another "They should roll back quickness/alacrity access to enforce class roles!" thread. It appears that your position is more nuanced than that, but I for one would be hesitant to vote in support lest the people who do want profession monopolies back take it as a win. I think there's a degree to which both retaining profession flavour and ensuring that the "bring the player, not the profession" philosophy is broadly fulfilled are essential, which requires striking a balance. As a result, my position is neither the strong alignment with one side or the other as indicated by the first two options, nor is it indifference as implied by the third, but instead I have an active position of balancing between both.

In that context, regarding the specific example referenced in this thread: I think it is losing some identity without a real corresponding gain in the "bring the player" aspect. Transfusion is nice to have, but it hasn't been pushing other heal builds out of the meta, because other heal builds have other things that are also nice to have. Mind you, the motivation does seem to be a specific issue it was presenting in WvW gameplay, rather than looking to give all professions broadly similar capabilities as implied by the thread title and poll options. So in this case I don't think it's a "flavour and diversity instead of homogeneity" issue, it's simply that they decided that a particular effect is just a little too good. Scourge will probably still be the best resser without it, although pugskinner is probably going to become that much more painful for people with higher ping.

Thanks for taking the time to explain exactly what I was thinking.

I'm still undecided about Transfusion. On the one hand, it's a really cool unique feature that I think necromancers deserve. On the other hand, it can move allied players against their will into a worse situation, even if the intention was honest. Bigger problem in competitive play for sure. Maybe a popup so the downed player can hit F to take the port, like mesmer rifle?

Edited Sunday at 07:43 PM by Gaiawolf.8261

[Jski.6180]

That was kind of doom from the start as there no different between the dmg types other then say condi vs power dmg. You lose a lot of flavour and diversity there to start with if you dont have at least magic dmg vs phical vs cures (dots) let alone not having fire lighting water earth light and dark.

Nothing else seems to be homogenizing the classes more then that one fact.

Though the best fix would be to add in an "pure power dmg" where you can no longer crit but still dose more dmg then non crits on crit builds  (close thing we can get to magic dmg in this game.)

Every thing is just animations and timing and the classes ARE very different in that way often unbalanced ways too.

[Panda.1967]

11 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

This option doesn't make much sense. Since profession flavor =/= capability. Classes can have similar capabilities but execute them with their own unique flavor, playstyles, themes, etc. 

I guess by default, I pick option neither? Because I think the team should respect their flavors, but give them all similar capabilities so I can play what I want how I want to play it. 

I couldn’t agree more… it also seems like some people on these forums conflate “Flavor” with “Role Identity”… Flavor is absolutely important to maintain, but role identity is a player made construct in this game… good balance will inevitably result in role identities being shared across all professions and that will yield the desired end result of playing what we want how we want.

[Xainou.1502]

To me the balance attempts lately felt like they're way too harsh in taking away special things, because those are problematic in competitive modes.
Absolutely sucks for PVE though, especially seeing they're capable of splitting skills otherwise.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

17 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think you might have made them a bit too simplistic here. When I saw the title, I was expecting this to be another "They should roll back quickness/alacrity access to enforce class roles!" thread. It appears that your position is more nuanced than that, but I for one would be hesitant to vote in support lest the people who do want profession monopolies back take it as a win. I think there's a degree to which both retaining profession flavour and ensuring that the "bring the player, not the profession" philosophy is broadly fulfilled are essential, which requires striking a balance. As a result, my position is neither the strong alignment with one side or the other as indicated by the first two options, nor is it indifference as implied by the third, but instead I have an active position of balancing between both.

In that context, regarding the specific example referenced in this thread: I think it is losing some identity without a real corresponding gain in the "bring the player" aspect. Transfusion is nice to have, but it hasn't been pushing other heal builds out of the meta, because other heal builds have other things that are also nice to have. Mind you, the motivation does seem to be a specific issue it was presenting in WvW gameplay, rather than looking to give all professions broadly similar capabilities as implied by the thread title and poll options. So in this case I don't think it's a "flavour and diversity instead of homogeneity" issue, it's simply that they decided that a particular effect is just a little too good. Scourge will probably still be the best resser without it, although pugskinner is probably going to become that much more painful for people with higher ping.

Fair enough. I did have a sentence in my post saying that I was fine with the main priority balancing team goal being making all professions be viable. This is a bit of a no-brainer to me.

My concern is essentially HOW the balancing team tries to make all of the professions viable. An extreme version would be for them to make all professions identical. Done, perfect balance. Clearly the balancing team isn't doing that at all, far from it. But it's a spectrum with identical professions being at one extreme (silly) end and wildly different professions with no similarities at the other end.

We're only debating where the ideal target is within the middle part of this spectrum. I want it to have a few more thematic and functional differences between how the professions and elite specs operate than the balancing team seem to.

I can't help feeling they are sometimes taking the easy way out by heavily nerfing or removing interesting and thematic abilities, rather than thinking a bit harder about how to retain the differences but in a balanced way.

Edited Monday at 04:14 AM by Mistwraithe.3106

[Mell.4873]

I think there is a difference between class diversity and make a class viable. 

An example of good design is a having every class being able to preform every role, boon support, boon dps and pure dps. 

An example of bad design is having a unique buff on your class like spotter which leads to your only purpose for joining a 10 man group being that trait.

[Jobber.6348]

It feels like overcorrection.

Remember the days when it's unthinkable to even bring Reaper to raids? That's basically a joke to even imagine a Warrior doing anything other than Banner dancing. They literally fought hard and fought well to bring the meta out of Chronojail, then have to push through Firebrigade which came after during PoF. Now it feels like they are intentionally slapping down unique properties in an attempt to bring balance but as a result they are killing core concepts that made such builds fun to begin with. 

What they should do isn't to kill Scourge's Revive, Scourge is powerful but it's not omnipotent. For one, it does not provide alot of actual raw healing. They should focus on designing encounters which can't be "trivialized" by a Scourge. Mechanics that Scourges can't wave their hand away or revive through. That would make other Healers more valuable for certain encounters, while Scourge is more risky to play. 

I'm sick of this thing where class balance is always targeting the players. What about encounters? Are you sure there's nothing you can do to them that makes some classes better or worse in them? The whole Quick and Alac thing as well. Why not just speed up everything and lower cooldowns at that point?

Why not make Defiance bar breaks grant your entire raid group a burst of Alac and Quickness instead of forcing every single setup to accomodate Alac and Quickness output? Other games seem to understand the idea of a "break phase" where players can push out the DPS, so it's more logical to give them a DPS boosting buff as a reward for breaking the boss. But Gw2 has it backwards. You're now breaking a bar just cos while everyone is juiced up permanently. As a result if you don't give your raid group the juice, you suck. And with that ideaology, every class now needs Alac and Quick. What if you grant Alac/Quick and do something extra? You're too powerful! No no no can't have that!

[Sigmoid.7082]

My issue with balance is Anet often listening to players who are far more concerned with what other classes can do rather than what their own does. 

[mungozen.2379]

On 9/14/2024 at 5:58 PM, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

Too often in recent times IMO the balance team has run into a profession/elite feature which is unique and provides a lot of flavour (Scourge Transfusion being the current example) and their solution has been to rip away the core feature which gives it the flavour and uniqueness. The long term effect of doing this is that all professions/elites lose a lot of their identifying flavour and end up more homogenous or cookie cutter.

This has been going on since PoF.  Homogenizing Boon providers was the biggest step, so all profs could provide Quick/Alac (but not equally, even today, hello Mirage).  If Anet wanted to make boon applications similar why not go all in and actually make them the same?  Then there would be less fuss about balance and more focus on what makes the different professions and eSpecs unique (which I hope would be playstyle and mechanics).

9 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I think there is a difference between class diversity and make a class viable. 

An example of good design is a having every class being able to preform every role, boon support, boon dps and pure dps. 

An example of bad design is having a unique buff on your class like spotter which leads to your only purpose for joining a 10 man group being that trait.

I strongly disagree that all professions should be able to do all things or that it makes for good game design.  I believe that the effectiveness of the Role should be relatively equal across builds, but not all Professions or eSpecs should be able to fulfill all Roles.

I think it is more interesting game design to have some Professions focused on specific playstyles and ignore others.  As long as there are enough options for Heal Support, DPS Support, and a variety of Condi and Power pure DPS, we don't need to dilute the Profession and eSpec themes.  Thinking of WoW, they list their classes as DPS, Heal, Tank.  Paladin, Shaman and Monk can fulfill all three roles, while Mage, Hunter, Warlock and Rogue can only DPS.  Is WoW a badly designed game because not all classes can fulfill each role?

If a profession is capable of fulfilling a role, I think it should be equally capable to other professions fulfilling that same role.  How they execute it can be different and play into the profession themes and mechanics.  

[Katary.7096]

When it comes to this topic the primary question is: Where do you draw the line?
Mesmers lost the flavor of being the only profession with a portal. Guardians were at one point the sole profession with AoE stability application. Warriors used to have a more defined identity when their banners had unique buff effects instead of generic boons. Rangers are in a similar situation with their spirit skills.
At what point is the unique flavor of a profession detrimental to the game?

[Shade.8037]

17 minutes ago, Katary.7096 said:

When it comes to this topic the primary question is: Where do you draw the line?
Mesmers lost the flavor of being the only profession with a portal. Guardians were at one point the sole profession with AoE stability application. Warriors used to have a more defined identity when their banners had unique buff effects instead of generic boons. Rangers are in a similar situation with their spirit skills.
At what point is the unique flavor of a profession detrimental to the game?

When it is stripped away without adding anything of flavor or class identity back? Every time. Though the thing is, other classes getting options isn't a removal of a class flavor. Mesmers are still the portal guys even if technically thief can do it too.

Warrior's loosing a unique thing with nothing in return? Terrible and has hurt the warrior mains ever since. (Not saying banner spam was great, but there certainly were more warriors back then, how often you see one in pve now?)

[Mell.4873]

4 hours ago, mungozen.2379 said:

 

I strongly disagree that all professions should be able to do all things or that it makes for good game design.  I believe that the effectiveness of the Role should be relatively equal across builds, but not all Professions or eSpecs should be able to fulfill all Roles.

I think it is more interesting game design to have some Professions focused on specific playstyles and ignore others.  As long as there are enough options for Heal Support, DPS Support, and a variety of Condi and Power pure DPS, we don't need to dilute the Profession and eSpec themes.  Thinking of WoW, they list their classes as DPS, Heal, Tank.  Paladin, Shaman and Monk can fulfill all three roles, while Mage, Hunter, Warlock and Rogue can only DPS.  Is WoW a badly designed game because not all classes can fulfill each role?

If a profession is capable of fulfilling a role, I think it should be equally capable to other professions fulfilling that same role.  How they execute it can be different and play into the profession themes and mechanics.  

Yeah but unlike WoW GW2 profession system has alot more tied to the individual class. If you get really good at a particular playstyle let's say Guardian then it's very easy to fill any required slot. 

I don't think Guardians should only be support classes.

I often see players complain about trying a new class on not instantly being able to do the Snowcrows DPS. I think the real way to play GW2 is to focus on a few classes and truly master them. 

Edited Monday at 07:05 PM by Mell.4873

[Kulvar.1239]

My opinion is a bit peculiar. It's

 

• Elite flavour is critical and the balance team needs to prioritise balancing solutions which retain it
• all professions have broadly similar capabilities is critical

Elite specialization must be flavorful and unique, but all professions should have broadly similar capabilities, just package differently in their elites.

Edited Tuesday at 08:44 PM by Kulvar.1239

[Brujeria.7536]

I mean all things considered you can have both - class identity and class balance. Also things can overcross to some extend. For example its fine if a weapon or spec will give rangers access to stealth - they will however never do that aspect as good as a thief will.

Now as for spellbreakers for example they play the boonhate game almost as potent as necromancers could, if not better at times. That is not good.

Another aspect is powercreep. There is more and more mobility for example, that aspect simply has been powercrept. So every class regardless has some options but some are above and beyond.  While it feels good for example for necromancers to have some mobility thats not tied to teleporting to a target, it still is ways behind thief or guardian for example.

Another aspect is powercreep for the options. Yeah they can add a boonsupport option for multiple specs. But it just needs to work and integrate and we have only so much trait lines and trait options.

The same goes for new weapon types, sudden shifts in design philosophy are really not good. For necromancers they slowly phased out boon corrupts. They shifted away from damaging conditions on weapons and more towards chill and weakness. Back in the day necromancer was like the king of bleeds and we had some relativly good access to blinds. But they never really changed traits alongside. Now we have traits that play into blind and poison but not many skills that can make use of it. We have a chill trait thats pretty boring. And we have no trait that interacts with weakness, yet they slap it on every weapon.

I mean like especially booncorrupt and condis and siphons are THE trademarks of necromancers in gw2. Yet at some point they decided to tune down conditions and that basicly made it harder for them to give necros nice things. But i really dont get why they tune down condis so harshly? Like yeah you can die from condi overload and you feel pretty bad. But it also feels pretty bad to get bursted for 8k damage or more in one skill . Or if a thief dances around in stealth being uncatchable. like why is that not nerf worthy? Thats also unfun.

 

Then for other classes like elementalist or warrior new weapons and mechanics are almost a bit like old ones. Ele always has 4 elements which means they can focus all traits around those. However as ele by design does everything always that makes the weapons often not very unique. Same goes for warriors, after you have covered the baseline of stuns, damage, movement it just boils down to what weapon is the biggest damage stick. A lot of weapons feel pretty much the same which of course goes nicely with keeping traits relevant but i feel the traits for warriors are for the most part good. As with many classes some support options feel a bit slapped on but it could be worse.

I think the balance team doenst have the resources to tackle the big problems like really reworking entire traitlines or classes at once.

 

 

[Gorem.8104]

Make Warrior banners great again 

[Kulvar.1239]

20 hours ago, Brujeria.7536 said:

I mean all things considered you can have both - class identity and class balance. Also things can overcross to some extend. For example its fine if a weapon or spec will give rangers access to stealth - they will however never do that aspect as good as a thief will.

Now as for spellbreakers for example they play the boonhate game almost as potent as necromancers could, if not better at times. That is not good.

Another aspect is powercreep. There is more and more mobility for example, that aspect simply has been powercrept. So every class regardless has some options but some are above and beyond.  While it feels good for example for necromancers to have some mobility thats not tied to teleporting to a target, it still is ways behind thief or guardian for example.

Another aspect is powercreep for the options. Yeah they can add a boonsupport option for multiple specs. But it just needs to work and integrate and we have only so much trait lines and trait options.

The same goes for new weapon types, sudden shifts in design philosophy are really not good. For necromancers they slowly phased out boon corrupts. They shifted away from damaging conditions on weapons and more towards chill and weakness. Back in the day necromancer was like the king of bleeds and we had some relativly good access to blinds. But they never really changed traits alongside. Now we have traits that play into blind and poison but not many skills that can make use of it. We have a chill trait thats pretty boring. And we have no trait that interacts with weakness, yet they slap it on every weapon.

I mean like especially booncorrupt and condis and siphons are THE trademarks of necromancers in gw2. Yet at some point they decided to tune down conditions and that basicly made it harder for them to give necros nice things. But i really dont get why they tune down condis so harshly? Like yeah you can die from condi overload and you feel pretty bad. But it also feels pretty bad to get bursted for 8k damage or more in one skill . Or if a thief dances around in stealth being uncatchable. like why is that not nerf worthy? Thats also unfun.

 

Then for other classes like elementalist or warrior new weapons and mechanics are almost a bit like old ones. Ele always has 4 elements which means they can focus all traits around those. However as ele by design does everything always that makes the weapons often not very unique. Same goes for warriors, after you have covered the baseline of stuns, damage, movement it just boils down to what weapon is the biggest damage stick. A lot of weapons feel pretty much the same which of course goes nicely with keeping traits relevant but i feel the traits for warriors are for the most part good. As with many classes some support options feel a bit slapped on but it could be worse.

I think the balance team doenst have the resources to tackle the big problems like really reworking entire traitlines or classes at once.

 

 

Necromancer should be the king of bleeding and poison.