More Frequent Balance Updates

[AllNightPlayer.1286]

Did we not have frequent balance patches once, which were delivered mid-season? Than they changed to one big and one small patch. And now we have balance patches like every 3 months, because of … ehm … reasons.

[AllNightPlayer.1286]

On the other hand, it totally makes sense: Balance focuses on PvE content. If there is no new PvE raid or fractal, which can be exploited, there is no need to “balance” it out, right. :grin:

[b k.1648]

Actually, that's the other thing. Mid-season balance patches tend to annoy players who had a working build beforehand but don't afterward. So yeah, it's better to time them for when they're more welcome.

[Einlanzer.1627]

It serves no purpose to slow balance to a crawl. It just creates a culture of under-reaction and myopic adjustments while also allowing for the growth of bad expectations among players. Biweekly is a good cadence for patches.

[starhunter.6015]

Frequent doesn't always mean better balance . Also less means some bugs go unfixed for longer. I would rather have them continue on the speed they are doing the patches now and work on getting them to be more bug free with their launch.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Basically, longer balance intervals do not mean the balance fixes will be any better. It will only mean that in a given timeframe there will be less chances to adjust them in the right direction.

OK ... and shorter ones could mean they do it worse.They could. Or they could mean they do it better. It's not a manual work, but theorycrafting - theorycrafting that needs to be confirmed ingame. Making bigger changes at longer intervals is in many ways worse than doing small changes at smaller intervals, because hamfisted balance is far more likely to overshoot the target in the other direction, and balance progress is very dependent on the number of balance iterations, which with longer intervals is much smaller in any given timeframe.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@starhunter.6015 said:Frequent doesn't always mean better balance . Also less means some bugs go unfixed for longer. I would rather have them continue on the speed they are doing the patches now and work on getting them to be more bug free with their launch.

It does, because statistically you will produce less bugs with lower risk, its the same developers doing both remember. Automated test as part of your build is your friend here. This is well proven and established in the last 15 years.

the way it works is more patches = smaller changes = lower risk + better ability to react + changes not sitting in branches for months on end going stale. It may seem counter intuitive to non developers, but big batches of changes is a bad thing. As I said before, incrementing a skill regularly by a fraction of a % over time and monitoring will allways produce better result over time with no risk than taking a punt at changes in a 2 month window.

What we have now is exactly this, unsatisfactory patches that fail to address key issues and introduce new issues patch after patch after patch - it is evidently clear it does not work, and you can see the classic side effects: devs reluctant to talk about fixes until last minute, fundamental skills being entirely broken and not fixed for weeks, and analysis paralysis.

[zealex.9410]

Like, lets not claim that changing the balance aproach is bad because it wont solve problems therefor it shouldnt even be attempted. In a world where the current aproach worked and it brought good results i could see that but thats not the case, we arent leaving behind a proven method that brings good result, we are leaving behind a method with visible flaws for something that might be better (and according to some ppl here it is better).

[Obtena.7952]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Basically, longer balance intervals do not mean the balance fixes will be any better. It will only mean that in a given timeframe there will be less chances to adjust them in the right direction.

OK ... and shorter ones could mean they do it worse.They could. Or they could mean they do it better. It's not a manual work, but theorycrafting - theorycrafting that needs to be confirmed ingame. Making bigger changes at longer intervals is in many ways worse than doing small changes at smaller intervals, because hamfisted balance is far more likely to overshoot the target in the other direction, and balance progress is very dependent on the number of balance iterations, which with longer intervals is much smaller in any given timeframe.

I think my point here isn't what could or couldn't be. The point is that whatever Anet is doing, it's probably the best way they know how to do it. Maybe Mr Expert 20 years in the software dev business could walk in there with his agile approach and straighten them out ... or maybe not ... because we don't know what they do.

What I am pretty sure of is that whatever work the balance team is doing, it's not 50% work and 50% slacking off to delay our balance patches. So just saying they should do them more often because 'better' is a completely ignorant way of thinking.

[b k.1648]

@Obtena.7952 said:I think my point here isn't what could or couldn't be. The point is that whatever Anet is doing, it's probably the best way they know how to do it. Maybe Mr Expert 20 years in the software dev business could walk in there with his agile approach and straighten them out ... or maybe not ... because we don't know what they do.

What I am pretty sure of is that whatever work the balance team is doing, it's not 50% work and 50% slacking off to delay our balance patches. So just saying they should do them more often because 'better' is a completely ignorant way of thinking.

If it was 20 years in the game industry, it might mean something. I'm not aware of any developers who do weekly balance updates - it's certainly not the norm - and there'll be a reason for that. Probably, like you suggested, because they have other things to do.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Let's be real more frequent balance passes or less frequent balance passes arnt gonna effect the actual balance decisions made by the team and I leave u guys to ur own thoughts on how well the teams been doing as far as balancing the game and keeping things fresh to avoid stagnation lol although more frequent passes may have certain things that are bugged, broken or badly implemented changed more quickly.

[Iozeph.5617]

@"Psycoprophet.8107" said:Let's be real more frequent balance passes or less frequent balance passes arnt gonna effect the actual balance decisions made by the team and I leave u guys to ur own thoughts on how well the teams been doing as far as balancing the game and keeping things fresh to avoid stagnation lol although more frequent passes may have certain things that are bugged, broken or badly implemented changed more quickly.

Well the hope is that if there are more balance passes there will be more opportunities for the devs to fail upwards by stumbling onto the occasional success.

[Obtena.7952]

Maybe I'm ignorant but I don't know any game that uses balance patches to keep the game 'fresh' for players. It's primarily content driven ... am I offbase here?

[zealex.9410]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Basically, longer balance intervals do not mean the balance fixes will be any better. It will only mean that in a given timeframe there will be less chances to adjust them in the right direction.

OK ... and shorter ones could mean they do it worse.They could. Or they could mean they do it better. It's not a manual work, but theorycrafting - theorycrafting that needs to be confirmed ingame. Making bigger changes at longer intervals is in many ways worse than doing small changes at smaller intervals, because hamfisted balance is far more likely to overshoot the target in the other direction, and balance progress is very dependent on the number of balance iterations, which with longer intervals is much smaller in any given timeframe.

I think my point here isn't what could or couldn't be. The point is that whatever Anet is doing, it's probably the best way they know how to do it. Maybe Mr Expert 20 years in the software dev business could walk in there with his agile approach and straighten them out ... or maybe not ... because we don't know what they do.

What I am pretty sure of is that whatever work the balance team is doing, it's not 50% work and 50% slacking off to delay our balance patches. So just saying they should do them more often because 'better' is a completely ignorant way of thinking.

Anet has done alot of think they thought they knew how to do right and still fail miserably. Ppl here just think this diff aproach might be better.

Its adapt or die and if qnet cant adapt to inprove then they will struggle.

If you think the current aproach is agile then i dont know what to tell you. As for the other point about taking this long because they actively do work to make these balance patches i can tell u that u've prob be ignoring what ppl are saying here.

Ppl are saying that anet should scale down on quantity of changes to gain in both speed that key changes get introduced as well as an overall improved experience because problems dont plague the game for months.

[zealex.9410]

@Obtena.7952 said:Maybe I'm ignorant but I don't know any game that uses balance patches to keep the game 'fresh' for players. It's primarily content driven ... am I offbase here?

What do you consider content in pvp games like league, dota etc if not balance updates?

[Astralporing.1957]

@Obtena.7952 said:I think my point here isn't what could or couldn't be. The point is that whatever Anet is doing, it's probably the best way they know how to do it.If that's true, it's not really reassuring. Although i am afraid you might be right on this, unfortunately.

[MidnightX.6294]

glamour mesmer without glamour traits.... enough said.

[Obtena.7952]

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Basically, longer balance intervals do not mean the balance fixes will be any better. It will only mean that in a given timeframe there will be less chances to adjust them in the right direction.

OK ... and shorter ones could mean they do it worse.They could. Or they could mean they do it better. It's not a manual work, but theorycrafting - theorycrafting that needs to be confirmed ingame. Making bigger changes at longer intervals is in many ways worse than doing small changes at smaller intervals, because hamfisted balance is far more likely to overshoot the target in the other direction, and balance progress is very dependent on the number of balance iterations, which with longer intervals is much smaller in any given timeframe.

I think my point here isn't what could or couldn't be. The point is that whatever Anet is doing, it's probably the best way they know how to do it. Maybe Mr Expert 20 years in the software dev business could walk in there with his agile approach and straighten them out ... or maybe not ... because we don't know what they do.

What I am pretty sure of is that whatever work the balance team is doing, it's not 50% work and 50% slacking off to delay our balance patches. So just saying they should do them more often because 'better' is a completely ignorant way of thinking.

Anet has done alot of think they thought they knew how to do right and still fail miserably. Ppl here just think this diff aproach might be better.

... and I'm not debating that. Maybe that's true but it's all just speculation. It doesn't really change what I said ... if Anet had the bandwidth to do it, why wouldn't they be doing it now? Do you think the balance team is playing ping pong half their day or something? I understand what's being asked here ... but if you don't know how balance patches work, it's all just hand wavy kinds of wishful thinking.

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Maybe I'm ignorant but I don't know any game that uses balance patches to keep the game 'fresh' for players. It's primarily content driven ... am I offbase here?

What do you consider content in pvp games like league, dota etc if not balance updates?

Those games are a different genre than GW2. But even in those game, I can imagine a scenario where things kept fresh doesn't necessarily mean they come in and mess with the class balance.

[zealex.9410]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Basically, longer balance intervals do not mean the balance fixes will be any better. It will only mean that in a given timeframe there will be less chances to adjust them in the right direction.

OK ... and shorter ones could mean they do it worse.They could. Or they could mean they do it better. It's not a manual work, but theorycrafting - theorycrafting that needs to be confirmed ingame. Making bigger changes at longer intervals is in many ways worse than doing small changes at smaller intervals, because hamfisted balance is far more likely to overshoot the target in the other direction, and balance progress is very dependent on the number of balance iterations, which with longer intervals is much smaller in any given timeframe.

I think my point here isn't what could or couldn't be. The point is that whatever Anet is doing, it's probably the best way they know how to do it. Maybe Mr Expert 20 years in the software dev business could walk in there with his agile approach and straighten them out ... or maybe not ... because we don't know what they do.

What I am pretty sure of is that whatever work the balance team is doing, it's not 50% work and 50% slacking off to delay our balance patches. So just saying they should do them more often because 'better' is a completely ignorant way of thinking.

Anet has done alot of think they thought they knew how to do right and still fail miserably. Ppl here just think this diff aproach might be better.

... and I'm not debating that. Maybe that's true but it's all just speculation. It doesn't really change what I said ... if Anet had the bandwidth to do it, why wouldn't they be doing it now? Do you think the balance team is playing ping pong half their day or something? I understand what's being asked here ... but if you don't know how balance patches work, it's all just hand wavy kinds of wishful thinking.

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Maybe I'm ignorant but I don't know any game that uses balance patches to keep the game 'fresh' for players. It's primarily content driven ... am I offbase here?

What do you consider content in pvp games like league, dota etc if not balance updates?

Those games are a different genre than GW2. But even in those game, I can imagine a scenario where things kept fresh doesn't necessarily mean they come in and mess with the class balance.

Gw2 has pvp and wvw.

[Doam.8305]

I started as a Mesmer as I loved what it could doThen the Balance bombs were dropped on my happy little world

I started with glamours traited in such a way that conditions were randomly spread to my enemies while giving beneficial effects to my allies. A two sided coin a red mage of sorts that dipped into dps and support at the same time. The playstyle was balanced completed gutted from the game.

Then I tried an army of clones that upon death would spread conditions a stealth build out in the open such a novel idea that I mimic'd my own movements to my clones to add to the fun. This to was balanced as it was completely removed from the game.

The wanted to balance for Esports apparently so in the name of balance my skill animations were drastically reduced.

They've so called balanced some classes while ignoring any and all implications in WvW leading to some truly dreadful monsters roaming WvW for months at a time.

The even more balance of sorts as the mesmer was completely outclassed by its elite that could do everything a normal mesmer could do with an additional shatter button. Soon instead of dps people wanted me to tank a different role from my initial choice but this too was a form of balance.

When balance takes the form of nerfing, ignoring implications in other modes, and completely removing playstyles from the game then its a major issue and can be seen as not only a bad thing but a dreadful experience that people tend to fear.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Doam.8305 said:I started as a Mesmer as I loved what it could doThen the Balance bombs were dropped on my happy little world

I started with glamours traited in such a way that conditions were randomly spread to my enemies while giving beneficial effects to my allies. A two sided coin a red mage of sorts that dipped into dps and support at the same time. The playstyle was balanced completed gutted from the game.

Then I tried an army of clones that upon death would spread conditions a stealth build out in the open such a novel idea that I mimic'd my own movements to my clones to add to the fun. This to was balanced as it was completely removed from the game.

The wanted to balance for Esports apparently so in the name of balance my skill animations were drastically reduced.

They've so called balanced some classes while ignoring any and all implications in WvW leading to some truly dreadful monsters roaming WvW for months at a time.

The even more balance of sorts as the mesmer was completely outclassed by its elite that could do everything a normal mesmer could do with an additional shatter button. Soon instead of dps people wanted me to tank a different role from my initial choice but this too was a form of balance.

When balance takes the form of nerfing, ignoring implications in other modes, and completely removing playstyles from the game then its a major issue and can be seen as not only a bad thing but a dreadful experience that people tend to fear.

This is it in a nutshell, slow change = biggrr change with less opportunities to correct - the world moves on. Now if anet had the luxury of even weekly drops I guarantee the solutions would have looked very different with inheritently lower risk and less dramatic impact. Instead your forced to design phased more controlled changes to fit into 1 week drops but have more opportunity to tweak your smaller fixes as a result. The alternative is what we have now, where changes are not revisited or even talk about! Probably because it's poor pr to revisit expensive large balance drops. All the worst kind of behaviours do and in fact have appeared.

[Sigmoid.7082]

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Basically, longer balance intervals do not mean the balance fixes will be any better. It will only mean that in a given timeframe there will be less chances to adjust them in the right direction.

OK ... and shorter ones could mean they do it worse.They could. Or they could mean they do it better. It's not a manual work, but theorycrafting - theorycrafting that needs to be confirmed ingame. Making bigger changes at longer intervals is in many ways worse than doing small changes at smaller intervals, because hamfisted balance is far more likely to overshoot the target in the other direction, and balance progress is very dependent on the number of balance iterations, which with longer intervals is much smaller in any given timeframe.

I think my point here isn't what could or couldn't be. The point is that whatever Anet is doing, it's probably the best way they know how to do it. Maybe Mr Expert 20 years in the software dev business could walk in there with his agile approach and straighten them out ... or maybe not ... because we don't know what they do.

What I am pretty sure of is that whatever work the balance team is doing, it's not 50% work and 50% slacking off to delay our balance patches. So just saying they should do them more often because 'better' is a completely ignorant way of thinking.

Anet has done alot of think they thought they knew how to do right and still fail miserably. Ppl here just think this diff aproach might be better.

... and I'm not debating that. Maybe that's true but it's all just speculation. It doesn't really change what I said ... if Anet had the bandwidth to do it, why wouldn't they be doing it now? Do you think the balance team is playing ping pong half their day or something? I understand what's being asked here ... but if you don't know how balance patches work, it's all just hand wavy kinds of wishful thinking.

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Maybe I'm ignorant but I don't know any game that uses balance patches to keep the game 'fresh' for players. It's primarily content driven ... am I offbase here?

What do you consider content in pvp games like league, dota etc if not balance updates?

Those games are a different genre than GW2. But even in those game, I can imagine a scenario where things kept fresh doesn't necessarily mean they come in and mess with the class balance.

Gw2 has pvp and wvw.

PvP game modes =/= PvP game.

[zealex.9410]

@Sigmoid.7082 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Basically, longer balance intervals do not mean the balance fixes will be any better. It will only mean that in a given timeframe there will be less chances to adjust them in the right direction.

OK ... and shorter ones could mean they do it worse.They could. Or they could mean they do it better. It's not a manual work, but theorycrafting - theorycrafting that needs to be confirmed ingame. Making bigger changes at longer intervals is in many ways worse than doing small changes at smaller intervals, because hamfisted balance is far more likely to overshoot the target in the other direction, and balance progress is very dependent on the number of balance iterations, which with longer intervals is much smaller in any given timeframe.

I think my point here isn't what could or couldn't be. The point is that whatever Anet is doing, it's probably the best way they know how to do it. Maybe Mr Expert 20 years in the software dev business could walk in there with his agile approach and straighten them out ... or maybe not ... because we don't know what they do.

What I am pretty sure of is that whatever work the balance team is doing, it's not 50% work and 50% slacking off to delay our balance patches. So just saying they should do them more often because 'better' is a completely ignorant way of thinking.

Anet has done alot of think they thought they knew how to do right and still fail miserably. Ppl here just think this diff aproach might be better.

... and I'm not debating that. Maybe that's true but it's all just speculation. It doesn't really change what I said ... if Anet had the bandwidth to do it, why wouldn't they be doing it now? Do you think the balance team is playing ping pong half their day or something? I understand what's being asked here ... but if you don't know how balance patches work, it's all just hand wavy kinds of wishful thinking.

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Maybe I'm ignorant but I don't know any game that uses balance patches to keep the game 'fresh' for players. It's primarily content driven ... am I offbase here?

What do you consider content in pvp games like league, dota etc if not balance updates?

Those games are a different genre than GW2. But even in those game, I can imagine a scenario where things kept fresh doesn't necessarily mean they come in and mess with the class balance.

Gw2 has pvp and wvw.

PvP game modes =/= PvP game.

Same aproach, diff size of teams focushing on the same aspects.

[Obtena.7952]

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Basically, longer balance intervals do not mean the balance fixes will be any better. It will only mean that in a given timeframe there will be less chances to adjust them in the right direction.

OK ... and shorter ones could mean they do it worse.They could. Or they could mean they do it better. It's not a manual work, but theorycrafting - theorycrafting that needs to be confirmed ingame. Making bigger changes at longer intervals is in many ways worse than doing small changes at smaller intervals, because hamfisted balance is far more likely to overshoot the target in the other direction, and balance progress is very dependent on the number of balance iterations, which with longer intervals is much smaller in any given timeframe.

I think my point here isn't what could or couldn't be. The point is that whatever Anet is doing, it's probably the best way they know how to do it. Maybe Mr Expert 20 years in the software dev business could walk in there with his agile approach and straighten them out ... or maybe not ... because we don't know what they do.

What I am pretty sure of is that whatever work the balance team is doing, it's not 50% work and 50% slacking off to delay our balance patches. So just saying they should do them more often because 'better' is a completely ignorant way of thinking.

Anet has done alot of think they thought they knew how to do right and still fail miserably. Ppl here just think this diff aproach might be better.

... and I'm not debating that. Maybe that's true but it's all just speculation. It doesn't really change what I said ... if Anet had the bandwidth to do it, why wouldn't they be doing it now? Do you think the balance team is playing ping pong half their day or something? I understand what's being asked here ... but if you don't know how balance patches work, it's all just hand wavy kinds of wishful thinking.

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Maybe I'm ignorant but I don't know any game that uses balance patches to keep the game 'fresh' for players. It's primarily content driven ... am I offbase here?

What do you consider content in pvp games like league, dota etc if not balance updates?

Those games are a different genre than GW2. But even in those game, I can imagine a scenario where things kept fresh doesn't necessarily mean they come in and mess with the class balance.

Gw2 has pvp and wvw.

That doesn't change anything I've said ... Keeping the game fresh isn't limited to ONLY changing balance ... in ANY game mode.

You're question to me is misdirection anyways ... I'm asking if there are other games out there that use balancing patches to continually keep the game fresh for players ... what I consider content in other games has nothing to do with how someone answers that question. I think my point is pretty simple. It's already hard enough for most game devs to use balance patches to get good balance ... now people are implying it should keep the game fresh for players as well? What fantasy land are people living in here?

[zealex.9410]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Basically, longer balance intervals do not mean the balance fixes will be any better. It will only mean that in a given timeframe there will be less chances to adjust them in the right direction.

OK ... and shorter ones could mean they do it worse.They could. Or they could mean they do it better. It's not a manual work, but theorycrafting - theorycrafting that needs to be confirmed ingame. Making bigger changes at longer intervals is in many ways worse than doing small changes at smaller intervals, because hamfisted balance is far more likely to overshoot the target in the other direction, and balance progress is very dependent on the number of balance iterations, which with longer intervals is much smaller in any given timeframe.

I think my point here isn't what could or couldn't be. The point is that whatever Anet is doing, it's probably the best way they know how to do it. Maybe Mr Expert 20 years in the software dev business could walk in there with his agile approach and straighten them out ... or maybe not ... because we don't know what they do.

What I am pretty sure of is that whatever work the balance team is doing, it's not 50% work and 50% slacking off to delay our balance patches. So just saying they should do them more often because 'better' is a completely ignorant way of thinking.

Anet has done alot of think they thought they knew how to do right and still fail miserably. Ppl here just think this diff aproach might be better.

... and I'm not debating that. Maybe that's true but it's all just speculation. It doesn't really change what I said ... if Anet had the bandwidth to do it, why wouldn't they be doing it now? Do you think the balance team is playing ping pong half their day or something? I understand what's being asked here ... but if you don't know how balance patches work, it's all just hand wavy kinds of wishful thinking.

@zealex.9410 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Maybe I'm ignorant but I don't know any game that uses balance patches to keep the game 'fresh' for players. It's primarily content driven ... am I offbase here?

What do you consider content in pvp games like league, dota etc if not balance updates?

Those games are a different genre than GW2. But even in those game, I can imagine a scenario where things kept fresh doesn't necessarily mean they come in and mess with the class balance.

Gw2 has pvp and wvw.

That doesn't change anything I've said ... Keeping the game fresh isn't limited to ONLY changing balance ... in ANY game mode.

But its far more important in pvp and wvw because you interact play with and against other ppl which are playing other classes.In pve its much less valueable because regardless if your power mirage build is weaker than the power chrono or not you are still doing the same content and killing the same static bosses. If they change thief then every interaction with thieves in pvp has the potential of being different.

Are you really telling me balance doesnt hold more weight in pvp than pve? Concent for players in pvp are the player versus player interactions, if their tools change each patch their interactions also change.

You're question to me is misdirection anyways ... I'm asking if there are other games out there that use balancing patches to continually keep the game fresh for players ... what I consider content in other games has nothing to do with how someone answers that question.

And i told you, pvp games or gamemodes value balance higher than pve game and gamemodes because your enemy isnt a boss with predetermined mechanics, its another dude with their class that can and does change every balance patch.

I think my point is pretty simple. It's already hard enough for most game devs to use balance patches to get good balance ... now people are implying it should keep the game fresh for players as well? What fantasy land are people living in here?

Its been implied for years... I feel like you've been given the answer and are simply ignoring it.