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Why are balance patches kept under such tight wraps?


Vagrant.7206

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Not just balance patches, but the game in general embraces a deliver and then discuss what was delivered afterwards since 2016 or so. I of course would like to know more now and then but the game is likely better not knowing too much too far in advance.

@sephiroth.4217 said:In case they can't deliver on everything.

It's just a little too risky to take a chance on saying you'll do something and then not do it due to whatever reason. While not balance related, does anyone remember when they announced legendary crafting? When did we finally get that? That very same scenario could have been a positive experience had Arenanet not mentioned that so far in advance and just worked on it in the background.

The same applies to balance IMO. Yeah we'll fix 'X'! When? Ahhh...Soon!

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I think one of the main reasons is not to create a bunch of hype or speculation before the actual patch drops. That way when u discover the changes, you get to try them out immediately.

I wouldn't mind them giving some generic previews though, but once again that could even give the wrong impression.

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@Cobrakon.3108 said:I think one of the main reasons is not to create a bunch of hype or speculation before the actual patch drops. That way when u discover the changes, you get to try them out immediately.

I wouldn't mind them giving some generic previews though, but once again that could even give the wrong impression.

Isn't that exactly what they did? With the Alacrity and mesmer Phantasm re-haul announcements?

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@Yannir.4132 said:

@Cobrakon.3108 said:I think one of the main reasons is not to create a bunch of hype or speculation before the actual patch drops. That way when u discover the changes, you get to try them out immediately.

I wouldn't mind them giving some generic previews though, but once again that could even give the wrong impression.

Isn't that exactly what they did? With the Alacrity and mesmer Phantasm re-haul announcements?

And the upcoming Alliance system for WvW.... Most information now days is very vague and only a guideline, which is still nice to know.

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@Yannir.4132 said:

@whoknocks.4935 said:The patch should land today in the next minutes?

The patch likely lands 5 pm / 17:00 London time. Or any time before midnight, if it's delayed by reasons they have control over. When it's ready.

I wish they could keep us update, already saying it in a random post that it was 6th February is something, but is that tiring post on facebook or twitter or here, guys patch will likely land today, or even, guys we are sorry we have to delay for this and this reason, instead of leaving us completely clueless.

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Pointing out weaknesses 3 days before the patch goes live doesnt do anything. They aren't going to say "oh yea lets cut that out even though they havent tested it yet".Lets be honest this is just about you not being able to wait. We all get that impatient feeling when an update we want is announced without details.

There is really no point in feeding bad conclusions by giving details on patches before they go live.

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So a history lesson, the last balance patch where all the details were known was the major specialization patch, where instead of putting trait points into each line you just select 3 specializations with 3 choices for each major trait. At this time the meta was extremely burst focused it was basically full team stealth up, insta kill one target and snowball the fight from there, almost every build was running vampirism runes for the passive mist form proc. The only non glassy builds used were a few cele builds mainly shoutbow warrior, dd ele, and rifle engi, with shoutbow being the most popular pick. The preview showed what appeared to be massive power creep to all classes and it was going to be a major shakeup no matter what happened, however there was one major point of contention which was putting evasive arcana and elemental attunment as competing against each-other for the same grandmaster trait slot. This made a lot of ele mains (myself included at the time) extremely upset as they are two of the most fun and interesting traits in the game to use and had always been used together, being forced to chose only one would have not only been a nerf, but would have also really hurt the fun of the class. Anet ended up caving in to the pressure, and elemental attunment was moved to the grandmaster minor slot so the two traits could still be used together.

As the meta was quickly figured out, it became apparent that dd ele was actually tremendously over tuned mainly since the patch also included burn stacking in intensity which gave dd ele a tremendous amount of extra damage than it previously had. DD ele remained dominant for a very long time with the infamous 4 ele 1 thief comp winning an esl weekly and double dd ele winning wts3. It made a good case for Anet to stop listening to popular feedback since they ended up buffing ele at the last second based on forum feedback and it then went on to be grossly overpowered. As such they have never changed anything thing from a preview feedback since then and generally only give partial previews at best. It is kind of funny that judging from the preview everyone thought shoutbow warrior would have been extremely dominant with the changes allowing it to pick up defy pain for free and getting a bunch of its then meta traits merged, however the healing per shout was stealth nerfed, and the burning changes surprisingly didn't help combustive shot and fan of fire nearly as much as they boosted drake's breath and ring of fire.

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