GW2 class distribution is a reflection of poor balance, awful class design and biased management

[Arheundel.6451]

I will take GW1 in comparison for a quick shot analysis: At no time during its 10 years of life experience, a GW1 community has ever experienced seeing a couple of professions being played 3-4x times more than the rest across all game modes:

• In PvP/PvE and Realm vs Realm: every single class always had not one but multiple meta builds regardless of meta and balance, people would switch/create new meta builds. In GW2 a new meta means some professions see their new mechanics/skills/traits nerfed into the ground behind any possible usage
• The lack of diminishing return on CC and condi output only makes the situation that much worse
• Bloated design choices in some professions and completely lacking in others, In some classes you get all boons with literally no effort at the press of a button while in other professions the same boon is gated behind a GM trait, often with a CD and requires active interaction from the player and the result only lasts 2-3s?!

In all regards, GW2 has failed spectacularly compared to gW1

 

[Dean Calaway.9718]

So which class mopped the floor with you to prompt this rant... ?

[Aeolus.3615]

2 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

I will take GW1 in comparison for a quick shot analysis: At no time during its 10 years of life experience, a GW1 community has ever experienced seeing a couple of professions being played 3-4x times more than the rest across all game modes:

• In PvP/PvE and Realm vs Realm: every single class always had not one but multiple meta builds regardless of meta and balance, people would switch/create new meta builds. In GW2 a new meta means some professions see their new mechanics/skills/traits nerfed into the ground behind any possible usage
• The lack of diminishing return on CC and condi output only makes the situation that much worse
• Bloated design choices in some professions and completely lacking in others, In some classes you get all boons with literally no effort at the press of a button while in other professions the same boon is gated behind a GM trait, often with a CD and requires active interaction from the player and the result only lasts 2-3s?!

In all regards, GW2 has failed spectacularly compared to gW1

 

yet gw1 failed hard for the kind of  players Anet want in gw2, that's why gw2 carries the players  compared with gw1.

Players nowadays don't want to play the game,, the larger players group want to feel strong with low effort stuff that's the trends devs follow, since brings players joy and make them stay in the game.

Try to take certain carry. boons like quickness or make it work like super speed  and u will see hell raise on gw2 forum and redit.

 

 

 

Edited Sunday at 03:37 PM by Aeolus.3615

[Lahmia.2193]

5 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

I will take GW1 in comparison for a quick shot analysis: At no time during its 10 years of life experience, a GW1 community has ever experienced seeing a couple of professions being played 3-4x times more than the rest across all game modes:

• In PvP/PvE and Realm vs Realm: every single class always had not one but multiple meta builds regardless of meta and balance, people would switch/create new meta builds. In GW2 a new meta means some professions see their new mechanics/skills/traits nerfed into the ground behind any possible usage
• The lack of diminishing return on CC and condi output only makes the situation that much worse
• Bloated design choices in some professions and completely lacking in others, In some classes you get all boons with literally no effort at the press of a button while in other professions the same boon is gated behind a GM trait, often with a CD and requires active interaction from the player and the result only lasts 2-3s?!

In all regards, GW2 has failed spectacularly compared to gW1

 

GW1 was terrible at internal balance of classes with like 90% of the huge roster of skills being worthless. In PvE, most meta builds are very similar setups with only niche changes for different areas of the game. Mesmer is so utterly dominate as the main damage class, its not even funny. Some classes (like Paragon and Warrior) were only ever used because of specific OP PvE skills. And I guess you don't remember the infamous Smiters boon nerf? Nevermind being nerfed into the ground. That thing was nuked from orbit.

I really think you should take off the rose tinted glasses.

[snowberry.4891]

7 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

I will take GW1 in comparison for a quick shot analysis: At no time during its 10 years of life experience, a GW1 community has ever experienced seeing a couple of professions being played 3-4x times more than the rest across all game mode:

Mesmer completely dominated in all game modes. Even heroes are mostly composed of Mesmers alongside Necros.

[draxynnic.3719]

I recall a period when the PvE meta was basically warrior, elementalist, monk, or Good Luck Finding A Group.

In GW2, at least at the moment the play rate imbalance is mostly a matter of people choosing to play the popular professions - I've very rarely seen someone being kicked for playing one of the less-played professions.

Edited Monday at 12:38 AM by draxynnic.3719

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Kitten I'm agreeing with Arheundel.

13 hours ago, Lahmia.2193 said:

GW1 was terrible at internal balance of classes with like 90% of the huge roster of skills being worthless. In PvE, most meta builds are very similar setups with only niche changes for different areas of the game. Mesmer is so utterly dominate as the main damage class, its not even funny. Some classes (like Paragon and Warrior) were only ever used because of specific OP PvE skills. And I guess you don't remember the infamous Smiters boon nerf? Nevermind being nerfed into the ground. That thing was nuked from orbit.

I really think you should take off the rose tinted glasses.

You must have start playing in the late years of GW1.

Mesmer was trash in pve, so trash that they were nothing but a fast casting ele until fast casting got nerfed. Same thing with war being used.

Meta was changing more way more frequently than in GW2 (which is stale anyway). Professions had identity. 

Skills were brilliantly designed, they had risk associated with them, unlike GW2 counterparts which have safety nets built in. Frenzy is always a good example, you attack faster but take twice the damage. In GW2 skills that provide quickness even have other bonuses. 

Yes, most of the skills were useless but you're deemed to it when you've a thousand skills. I mean there are far less in GW2 and you also have tons of useless garbage in there.

[Dadnir.5038]

18 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

At no time during its 10 years of life experience, a GW1 community has ever experienced seeing a couple of professions being played 3-4x times more than the rest across all game modes

That's where you're wrong.

Even in GW1 there has been "metas" where a single profession was prefered over all other across all gamemodes. The same way, even in GW1 there were builds that outshined everything else only leaving small niches for other professions to barely breath.

It was felt a bit less for the core professions (even if some mesmer's tools made the game a lot easier) but be it Assassin, Ritualist, Paragon or Dervich, all 4 of those professions monopolized the "meta" in a flashy way at some point. Assassin through exploiting shadow form, Ritualist via it's spirits, Paragon had the paraway and Dervich has been wildly popular through avatars builds.

As a matter of fact, I probably wouldn't have gone through the game and it's extensions with Assassin and Dervich if I hadn't been influenced by the meta. I didn't click with those professions at first. Or rather, Assassin was fun against anything that didn't explode upon death and unfortunately the beginner area of faction was full of things that explode upon death. It was as if the game was telling me to avoid playing Assassin.

[Triptaminas.4789]

Every decision by the balance team seemed to do nothing but bastardize and butcher the game to the point Im not sure what its target audience anymore.
Reminded me of the kind of behavior you'd see in private server revivals of dead MMO's where the dev team would actively sabotage other players' experience just to please their small Discord clique, except with gw2 there is millions of dollars on the line.

Edited Monday at 08:50 AM by Triptaminas.4789

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

People in here saying guild wars 1 had a meta in PvP is crazy. They obviously can’t name “the meta” because it was always changing and never really had a single one.
 

the only true actual toxic meta that existed and the only problem guild wars 1 ever really had in terms of balance issues was shadow form in PVE…the ability to have permanent invulnerability while also being able to do damage was obviously god mode. The reason it stayed in the game was because the entire guild wars economy (speed clearing) was built on it functioning that way…when devs threatened to change it they (the speed clear community) “revolted” threatening to leave. Anet got spooked and so they only did minor adjustment instead. To this day it is still perma-able.
 

And surprise: guild wars 2 is built on the same toxic shadowform design…

PvP by contrast had no real Metas…not overly dominant ones…It weaved in and out of different tactics…many of them had names…Discord way, Eleball, Iway, RTL Spike, Invoke Spike, Contagion Bomb, Glaive Spike, Rainbow Spike, Hexway and the list goes on for hundreds of hundreds of builds and teambuilds.

the key important thing was that the builds were functionally unique. You could write academic papers on some them with how unique they were. My favorite build was Emo Bonder (PVE build) because of how strange it was…like a funny machine that tip toed on the edge of chaos. Just saying the name Emo Bonder is evocative enough about what it could even be… also my favorite was contagion bomb, which is just fascinating to witness both dying from it and watching people function like an organism to do it properly.

Anyway, back in the day people were actually excited for balance patches because well…they weren’t really balance patches…mechanics get changed and therefor new permutations of builds could arise. Anyone who said guild wars 1 had no diversity has no idea what they are talking about and I’d argue they never played the game. Why would these same people play guild wars 2 if they weren’t fans of guild wars 1? It’s primary most well known feature being its build design?

For context I’ve played the franchise since factions release (20 year vet here) and I’ve seen the franchise evolve and experienced all of its different forms. 

 

Edited Monday at 08:44 PM by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

GW1

The first real toxic meta was the IWAY team build in hall of heroes... and people cried for it's nerf for about a year.

With the 1st expac, Anet nerfed 55 monks and elemenalists with the enemy AI update that caused them to spread out in AoE spells. 

The other big change was when they limited necro minions to soul reaping stat. Before the change, one necro could maintain 20-30 minions

And at some point Ensign wrote about how warrior autoattacking without skills did more damage than elementalist using full damage rotations.

After that I never cared about any metas enough to pay attention to what they even were...

Edited Tuesday at 08:03 AM by Forgotten Legend.9281

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

People in here saying guild wars 1 had a meta in PvP is crazy. They obviously can’t name “the meta” because it was always changing and never really had a single one.

You're tilting at windmills here - I'm pretty sure everyone talking about GW1 metas in this thread are primarily or entirely thinking about PvE.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

56 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

You're tilting at windmills here - I'm pretty sure everyone talking about GW1 metas in this thread are primarily or entirely thinking about PvE.

Okay what does this change about my statement? Shadowform economy was and still is the metagame for gw1, and it has and always has been its issue with game balance.

if you don’t join a speed clear group, UW takes about 4 hours and is extremely boring but all classes could do it…mostly because as a team these dungeons weren’t really that hard. It’s only speed clearing that was “challenging” in an attempt to solo parts of the dungeon (you can’t screw up, where as UA monk was a very easy cushion for these places)

in other words there was no meta like how you are dreaming it at all. It was just shadow-form economy and everything else was fine. Y’all gotta remember that PVE was not that hard in that game and it was mostly about farming to get rich…

Edited Tuesday at 12:43 AM by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[draxynnic.3719]

18 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Okay what does this change about my statement? Shadowform economy was and still is the metagame for gw1, and it has and always has been its issue with game balance.

if you don’t join a speed clear group, UW takes about 4 hours and is extremely boring but all classes could do it…mostly because as a team these dungeons weren’t really that hard. It’s only speed clearing that was “challenging” in an attempt to solo parts of the dungeon (you can’t screw up, where as UA monk was a very easy cushion for these places)

in other words there was no meta like how you are dreaming it at all. It was just shadow-form economy and everything else was fine. Y’all gotta remember that PVE was not that hard in that game and it was mostly about farming to get rich…

It changes the part I quoted quite significantly - people were talking about the PvE meta, so complaining about people talking about a PvP meta is indeed tilting at windmills

PvE metas absolutely did exist, although not unchanging, in several forms. You talk about shadowform. I was there trying to progress the story on a mesmer in the holy trinity days where the build was a warrior tank, monks, and triple meteor shower eles. There's also been things like bearway. It's worth keeping in mind that, similar to GW2, "PvE was not that hard" has come about through a combination of power creep and some missions being nerfed (Thunderhead Keep being a prime example - it used to be a hard filter to get through, now the enemies trickle in so slowly it barely feels like a siege at all...). A good group absolutely could get through content without being 'meta', outside of certain specific missions where you need a particular skill to succeed (I recall one of the Factions challenge missions requires Necrotic Traversal), but the people forming groups were often, shall we say, conservative about sticking to the party structures they were familiar with.

Claims that there were never times when there were some professions overwhelmingly favoured over others is a serious case of looking back with rose tinted glasses. It did improve over time, partially through direct efforts to boost up underperforming professions in PvE (PvE/PvP skill splits were a godsend for mesmers in particular, since before then they were held back in PvE to prevent them from completely dominating in PvP) and partially through overpowered PvE-only skills that almost allowed you to sidestep what your profession happened to be altogether. But GW2 has also been progressing into a phase where all professions are viable. Some are less played due to being harder to make work, but as I said, I've very rarely seen someone barred from a group for being the "wrong" profession unless there's some specific capability that is needed that the player wasn't bringing.

Edited Tuesday at 01:01 AM by draxynnic.3719

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

5 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

. It's worth keeping in mind that, similar to GW2, "PvE was not that hard" has come about through a combination of power creep and some missions being nerfed (Thunderhead Keep being a prime example - it used to be a hard filter to get through, now the enemies trickle in so slowly it barely feels like a siege at all...).

kitten Thunderhead Keep! First toon I made I was stuck there for a week.

And also the mission on factions where two teams came together (in the beginning).

And Togo aggroing everything on the map.

kitten what an amazing game that was.

Edited Tuesday at 06:44 AM by Lincolnbeard.1735

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

I can’t take these responses seriously… saying  prophecies was hard ❓ lmao!

you could beat the entire game with henchmen, and it only got easier when hero’s and expansions were introduced. 

The final boss of the (prophecies) game would 50% of the time, sit there and do nothing. That’s how bad anet was at making bosses back in the day. It was nothing at all like guild wars 2 bosses which was a huge HUGE step up from gw1.

Let’s not forget to mention that bosses didn’t really exist in guild wars: missions were mostly just mobs.

 

Edited Tuesday at 10:02 AM by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

"Prochecies was hard guys"

Meawhile prophecies...

 

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

1 hour ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

I can’t take these responses seriously… saying  prophecies was hard ❓ lmao!

you could beat the entire game with henchmen, and it only got easier when hero’s and expansions were introduced. 

The final boss of the (prophecies) game would 50% of the time, sit there and do nothing. That’s how bad anet was at making bosses back in the day. It was nothing at all like guild wars 2 bosses which was a huge HUGE step up from gw1.

Let’s not forget to mention that bosses didn’t really exist in guild wars: missions were mostly just mobs.

 

You start playing on factions as you said.

At launch Prophecies was not hard except very specific missions such as Thunderhead Keep, which was a pita to do.

Same thing happened in factions, in the first mission where two team met, at the beginning it was kind of hard, even threads were made in gw guru for ANet to nerf its difficulty then people adapted and it became easier.

Apart from very specific missions and one or two dungeons the entire gw franchise was easy.

Edited Tuesday at 11:02 AM by Lincolnbeard.1735

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

9 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

You start playing on factions as you said.

Which was a year after proph release. That’s not a huge time leap. not buying this prophecies was hard rhetoric.

Inb4 some one says nightfall was the worst expansion. 

Edited Tuesday at 11:15 AM by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

30 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Which was a year after proph release. That’s not a huge time leap. not buying this prophecies was hard rhetoric.

Inb4 some one says nightfall was the worst expansion. 

As I said, people needed time to adapt, at the beginning I was stuck in Thunderhead for a week, and like me plenty of others did. All my other chars had an easier time already.

Nightfall is my favourite. Factions was the worse for me, those ugly buildings graphics plus tons of enemies and explosions made the game run at 5fps on my potato pc, others xpacs ran well.

Edited Tuesday at 11:38 AM by Lincolnbeard.1735

[Frozey.8513]

On 9/30/2024 at 3:36 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

I recall a period when the PvE meta was basically warrior, elementalist, monk, or Good Luck Finding A Group.

In GW2, at least at the moment the play rate imbalance is mostly a matter of people choosing to play the popular professions - I've very rarely seen someone being kicked for playing one of the less-played professions.

I also recall a period in GW2 where if your class icon had green in it, you would not be welcome in any parties. Never had I experienced this occuring back in GW1, but perhaps something like that might have happened post-GW2 launch as you described.

[zeyeti.8347]

i'll join everyone on the gw 1 take , we didn't argue a lot because ranting was not as common as nowadays , but in term of balance gw 1 was also a nightmare , elementalist failing to deal any damage cause mobs at higher level had so much armor it would always go on pure damage (like chaotic from mesmer) and was used mostly as a warder for extra protection or the super weird healer with Ether Renewal , spamming Infuse Health , also who remember the omega nerf to Smiter's Boon in pvp ? just compare Smiter's Boon (PvP) , that's on huge nerf !

My most biggest rant was the nerf of 600hp smiter monk , i really enjoyed doing Murakai dungeon alone 😢

Ahh nostalgia looking at those skills.

gw2 is seasonal patches , a class is gonna be the favored for a period of time and another will fall into oblivion for another of time , look at mirage who was the number one damage dealer giving alacrity and 25 might to 10 people , now it's cast into oblivion and one day a patch will come and make it shine again , another example is catalyst , absolutely underplayed in pve , but the patch of 8 oct is gonna make it shine and maybe replace the favored herald quickness dps , while being way less accessible in term of apm indeed.

Edited Tuesday at 04:09 PM by zeyeti.8347

[Dadnir.5038]

6 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

"Prochecies was hard guys"

Meawhile prophecies...

The final boss on prophecy wasn't hard. The main issue was that the mission was lengthy and Undead Rurik had a furious tendency to bug and stop the progress of the mission.

You wouldn't believe how many time this guy buged on me in this mission: never appearing, falling down the map in the middle of the fight, refusing to fight/staying a green name, suddenly becoming invincible... etc. And if it was not enough, sometime the lich didn't even appear after dealing with Rurik. 

The true challenge in Profecy was to keep yourself from swearing whenever Rurik was involved. Hand down the worst character of the game. It's to the point that, out of habit, I sweared the first time I saw Rurikton in GW2...

In faction the real roadblock wasn't Shiro but keeping the kitten turtle hatchlings alive in Gyala Hatchery (which is the reason I usually ended giving up the luxon in favor of doing the eternal grove mission in the Kurzick side).

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

My most biggest rant was the nerf of 600hp smiter monk , i really enjoyed doing Murakai dungeon alone 😢

I did enjoy doing that as well. I also used to solo the Ooze pit with the same build.

My biggest rant? Rurik... Nothing in GW made me rant as much as this guy did.

My best memory? Cristal Oasis soundtrack. The first time I entered the cristal desert it was a blast. Even now, 20 years later I like to go back there to listen to the soundtrack.

Edited Tuesday at 05:49 PM by Dadnir.5038

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

1 hour ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

elementalist failing to deal any damage cause mobs at higher level had so much armor it would always go on pure damage (like chaotic from mesmer)

Thats why I don’t buy this “warrior/elementalist/monk” meta argument being had here. Most classes in the game could do the same damage (numbers was not really different across skills) and some classes that obviously weren’t these three had lots of benefits and I remember mesmers and necromancers being much more meta than elementalist. Necromancers for instance stacking minions was highly sought after in the same way that ritualistic spirit spammers are sought after. 
 

By and large there were just many builds…and classes could  cross pollinate skills to run any build anyway. That’s why class balance was never a thing and why this “warrior/elementalist/monk” is just bs. As you point out a lot of healers (some of the best) were elementalist builds! lol

Also, The ether renewel build sounds like emo bonder which was one of my favorites that I mentioned earlier. There was also an ele tank build, blinding surge bots, Savanah eles, and Emobonders and some other healer varients on ele…there was all kinds of builds…and it was like that for other classes…all except for speed clearing which was strictly  shadowform meta.

 

could probably look it up now and find 3/4 of those SC builds being A/ME or A/insert shadowform variant here.

Edited Tuesday at 05:40 PM by JusticeRetroHunter.7684