Revising Attributes

[Airdive.2613]

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:

The gist of it is that doubling your power doubles outgoing damage, while doubling your armor halves incoming damage.This sounds good in theory, but it overlooks a few major things that throw the balance way out of whack:

1.) Power is given much more reach through Precision and Ferocity than Toughness gains through Vitality and Healing Power (or vice versa)

Yet you provide no evidence it is a problem at all, nor that your solution is any better.

2.) Power is calculated independently in the damage formula while Toughness is combined with armor value, which dilutes the effect of each point of Toughness. Doubling your toughness doesn't double your your armor, it instead just increases it by about 50%, which reduces your incoming damage by about 33%.

Somehow League of Legends, surely a renowned and competitive game, uses damage modifiers and then divides "pure" damage by the target's armor score. It seems to work just fine in that game, where is the evidence of it being problematic in Guild Wars 2?(Edit: you could argue GW 2 would benefit from its own "armor penetration" attribute, and it is a possibility, but it would take a whole another thread to discuss.)

3.) Because combat typically gives more weight to offense than defense by default, in order to be competitive, defensive stats should carry more weight than offensive stats. In GW2, as illustrated above, we have the opposite. People act like it's because "offense is better, period", when, in reality, poor balance is to blame for the dominance of Berserker.

This is simply a speculation. I'm sure you're convinced in your own stance, but, as I said, you refuse to provide clear illustration of a problem.

The best fix I can think of is to reign-in the over-emphasis on Power by making the outgoing portion align with the incoming portion by changing the damage formula so that weapon attack and power are summed instead of multipled, then the sum of both is multiplied by a level-based constant. OR, alternatively, to increase the significance of Toughness in the damage formula by adding a subtraction component after the division component of damage reduction.

I see no reason to assume your suggestion is going to "fix" anything unless you actually carry on some analysis. Which you claim to have done, but refuse to provide the results, trying to speculate instead.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Airdive.2613 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:

The gist of it is that doubling your power doubles outgoing damage, while doubling your

armor

halves incoming damage.

This sounds good in theory, but it overlooks a few major things that throw the balance way out of whack:

1.) Power is given much more reach through Precision and Ferocity than Toughness gains through Vitality and Healing Power (or vice versa)

Yet you provide no evidence it is a problem at all, nor that your solution is any better.

2.) Power is calculated independently in the damage formula while Toughness is combined with armor value, which dilutes the effect of each point of Toughness. Doubling your toughness doesn't double your your armor, it instead just increases it by about 50%, which reduces your incoming damage by about 33%.

Somehow League of Legends, surely a renowned and competitive game, uses damage modifiers and then divides "pure" damage by the target's armor score. It seems to work just fine in that game, where is the evidence of it being problematic in Guild Wars 2?

3.) Because combat typically gives more weight to offense than defense by default, in order to be competitive, defensive stats should carry more weight than offensive stats. In GW2, as illustrated above, we have the opposite. People act like it's because "offense is better, period", when, in reality, poor balance is to blame for the dominance of Berserker.

This is simply a speculation. I'm sure you're convinced in your own stance, but, as I said, you refuse to provide clear illustration of a problem.

The best fix I can think of is to reign-in the over-emphasis on Power by making the outgoing portion align with the incoming portion by changing the damage formula so that weapon attack and power are summed instead of multipled, then the sum of both is multiplied by a level-based constant. OR, alternatively, to increase the significance of Toughness in the damage formula by adding a subtraction component after the division component of damage reduction.

I see no reason to assume your suggestion is going to "fix" anything unless you actually carry on some analysis. Which you claim to have done, but refuse to provide the results, trying to speculate instead.

The evidence that it's a problem is in the game itself - there's widespread consensus that using defensive stats results in a major net loss in effectiveness, so nobody does and community advice universally steers people away from using any at all. This begs the question of why it exists to begin with considering it's a trap option. I'm providing the data showing why these people are correct and that it is indeed a trap option - because tripling or quadrupling your offense is far more effective, including for surviving, than increasing your defense by 50-80% is. Are you disagreeing with this? If not, why are you disagreeing that this is a problem?

Also, I looked up LoL's damage formula and it's this:

physical damage = damage * [(armor - armor penetration) / (100 + armor)]

Doesn't really seem comparable to GW2's damage formula so I'm not sure why you brought it up. You'll have to provide more context if you want me to seriously respond to it.

Most people won't agree with me in this thread because it's either above their comprehension and/or they have status quo bias. That doesn't make them right. I've provided the evidence above that changing the damage formula increases parity between power and toughness, something that's desirable for balancing the stats. The evidence is right there in the alternate formula I provided. Unjustifiably persisting in claiming I haven't proven anything doesn't make it so - that's the tactic that creationists like to use.

[Airdive.2613]

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:The evidence that it's a problem is in the game itself - that there's widespread consensus that using defensive stats results in a major net loss in effectiveness, so nobody does and forum advice universally steers people away from it. I'm providing the data showing why this is the case. If you want to argue otherwise, then it's on you to provide evidence that there isn't a problem.

You are clearly not providing any data apart from some disconnected facts (for the current system) and pure speculation (for your proposed one).

Also, I looked up LoL's damage formula and it's this:

physical damage = damage * [(armor - armor penetration) / (100 + armor)]

Doesn't really seem comparable to GW2's damage formula so I'm not sure why you brought it up. You'll have to provide more context if you want me to seriously respond to it.

It is "skill coefficient"x"damage attribute"/"armor" for most abilities. Yes, there is no "armor penetration" in GW 2, but the rest is the same.

Most people wont' agree with me in this thread because most people are authoritarians who defend whatever the status quo is.

I've tried to help your analysis in my first post, but to summarize here: you do not provide enough meaningful data about neither system. At this moment there's nothing to argue with as there's nothing to infer from your points.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Airdive.2613 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:The evidence that it's a problem is in the game itself - that there's widespread consensus that using defensive stats results in a major net loss in effectiveness, so nobody does and forum advice universally steers people away from it. I'm providing the data showing why this is the case. If you want to argue otherwise, then it's on you to provide evidence that there isn't a problem.

You are clearly

not

providing any data apart from some disconnected facts (for the current system) and pure speculation (for your proposed one).

Also, I looked up LoL's damage formula and it's this:

physical damage = damage * [(armor - armor penetration) / (100 + armor)]

Doesn't really seem comparable to GW2's damage formula so I'm not sure why you brought it up. You'll have to provide more context if you want me to seriously respond to it.

It is "skill coefficient"x"damage attribute"/"armor" for most abilities. Yes, there is no "armor penetration" in GW 2, but the rest is the same.

Most people wont' agree with me in this thread because most people are authoritarians who defend whatever the status quo is.

I've tried to help your analysis in my first post, but to summarize here: you do not provide enough meaningful data about neither system. At this moment there's nothing to argue with as there's nothing to infer from your points.

Let me rephrase my above post so I can hold you accountable for more properly responding to it instead of just using hollow reasoning to falsely claim I haven't brought facts to the discussion. And, actually, I'd love for others to respond to this as well as a sort of informal poll.

By investing in offensive stats, you can more or less triple your outgoing damage. By investing in defensive stats, you might double your time to live, and that's without factoring in active defense, which greatly offsets the already questionable usefulness of defensive stats. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? If you disagree, kindly explain why.

Tripling your time to kill (consistently) is much more desirable than doubling your time to live (as a best case scenario) with the same level of investment, and that includes even in terms of surviving combat, since you can eliminate threats much more quickly. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? If you disagree, kindly explain why.

This total lack of parity is a balance problem because it means that defensive stats are a ruse that serve no purpose but to undermine your overall effectiveness in combat, forcing everyone to play a glass cannon, leading to the utter dominance of Berserker stats in PvE, and making the game flat-out unfriendly to less skilled or disabled players. Do you agree or disagree that this is a problem? If you disagree, kindly explain why.

Parity can be easily improved by modifying the damage formula to either lower the effect of Power or increase the effect of Toughness, ideally through a supplemental subtraction of damage to give it a role separate from the dodge system. This would have the effect of making passive defense less of a trap option and allowing low skill or disabled players a more controlled way of playing the game. Do you agree or disagree with this being a good thing? If you disagree, kindly explain why.

Separately, it might be worth requiring investment in active defense by tying it to a stat instead of making it good for free, so that glass cannon stats are properly glassy and people can build into a high-dodge playstyle if that's what they enjoy and are good at. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? If you disagree, kindly explain why.

[Airdive.2613]

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:By investing in offensive stats, you can more or less triple your outgoing damage. By investing in defensive stats, you might double your time to live, and that's without factoring in active defense, which greatly offsets the already questionable usefulness of defensive stats. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? If you disagree, kindly explain why.

I can't be bothered to check the actual numbers right now, but that sounds about right: power is a linear modifier while toughness works as an inverse (1/x).I would not be so hasty to compare time to kill, however, before experimenting with different actual in-game numbers. In general, it might not mean anything because, according to the formula, 3/3 = 1 (in case you triple both damage and armor values, time to kill does not change).

Tripling your time to kill (consistently) is much more desirable than doubling your time to live (as a best case scenario) with the same level of investment, and that includes even in terms of surviving combat, since you can eliminate threats much more quickly. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? If you disagree, kindly explain why.

Yes, and it is a general strategy employed in a lot of games as well as in real warfare.

This total lack of parity is a balance problem because it means that defensive stats are a trap door option that serve no purpose but to undermine your overall effectiveness in combat, which has led to the utter dominance of Berserker stats in PvE.

The only lack of parity you provide is that of general desirability, and it stems from common sense. You can't fix people.I can't evaluate the effectiveness of defensive attributes because I haven't nearly played all builds and setups in the game (and also not sure what "effectiveness" means because there are builds with different purposes).

[Airdive.2613]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Parity can be easily improved by modifying the damage formula to either lower the effect of Power or increase the effect of Toughness, ideally through a supplemental subtraction of damage to give it a role separate from the dodge system. This would have the effect of making passive defense less of a trap option and allowing low skill or disabled players a more controlled way of playing the game. Do you agree or disagree with this being a good thing? If you disagree, kindly explain why.

Things I disagree with: that the parity can be easily improved; that your suggested changes would have any effect at all.

Separately, it might be worth requiring investment in active defense by tying it to a stat instead of making it good for free, so that glass cannon stats are properly glassy and people can build into a high-dodge playstyle if that's what they enjoy and are good at. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? If you disagree, kindly explain why.

I don't really care about this, as long as the game stays balanced overall. Of course it's going to be a lot of work balancing all those defensive and evasive skills that aren't attribute-dependent now.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Airdive.2613 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Parity can be easily improved by modifying the damage formula to either lower the effect of Power or increase the effect of Toughness, ideally through a supplemental subtraction of damage to give it a role separate from the dodge system. This would have the effect of making passive defense less of a trap option and allowing low skill or disabled players a more controlled way of playing the game.

Do you agree or disagree with this being a good thing? If you disagree, kindly explain why.

Things I disagree with: that the parity can be easily improved; that your suggested changes would have any effect at all.

Separately, it might be worth requiring investment in active defense by tying it to a stat instead of making it good for free, so that glass cannon stats are properly glassy and people can build into a high-dodge playstyle if that's what they enjoy and are good at.

Do you agree or disagree with this statement? If you disagree, kindly explain why.

I don't really care about this, as long as the game stays balanced overall. Of course it's going to be a lot of work balancing all those defensive and evasive skills that aren't attribute-dependent now.

My argument is that the balance between offensive stats and defensive stats is so massively out of whack that defensive stats actually harm your attrition, making them worse than useless.

This is because the effect of killing mobs at 1/2 to 1/3 the speed is far more significant to your likely survival of an encounter than the effect of being able to take a couple of more hits in that encounter. What I always fail to understand in these conversations is why people don't see that as a balance issue.

[Sigmoid.7082]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Most people won't agree with me in this thread because it's either above their comprehension and/or they have status quo bias.

You want people to get involved but saying something like this will dissuade people from trying to open any further discussion because disagreeing with your statements means they either don't understand the problem or are to blind to see why you are right and they are wrong.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Sigmoid.7082 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Most people won't agree with me in this thread because it's either above their comprehension and/or they have status quo bias.

You want people to get involved but saying something like this will dissuade people from trying to open any further discussion because disagreeing with your statements means they either don't understand the problem or are to blind to see why you are right and they are wrong.

If that's how they want to see it, so be it. I provided a survey above that people who want to have an actual discussion can spring from. Chances are good if they don't come into the thread wanting to have a discussion, then nothing I say will matter one way or another.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Lunateric.3708" wrote the following, in response to the OP's Reddit thread:https://reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/cp4h99/survey_on_attributes/ewn55m1/This is a very elaborate post that just champions the idea of having better damage reduction which sounds incredibly boring.

Eating damage isn't a thing in this game, it hasn't been a thing since the game was released almost and the times where it did become a thing (infamous bunker metas) it was absolutely horrible.

---

FunkyBot wrotehttps://reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/cp4h99/survey_on_attributes/ewn84iq/This is not a survey an analysis. This is a 'change my mind' post.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

This total lack of parity is a balance problem because it means that defensive stats are a ruse that serve no purpose but to undermine your overall effectiveness in combat, forcing everyone to play a glass cannon, leading to the utter dominance of Berserker stats in PvE, and making the game flat-out unfriendly to less skilled or disabled players. Do you agree or disagree that this is a problem? If you disagree, kindly explain why.I don't agree it's a problem, no.

• Defensive stats are not a ruse; they just aren't "efficient."
• There are perfectly serviceable PvE builds using defensive stats

forcing everyone to play a glass cannon,since not everyone plays glass cannons, I can't agree with any conclusion based on that

leading to the utter dominance of Berserker stats in PvE,there's always a "most efficient" stat combo; why does this bother you?

making the game flat-out unfriendly to less skilledThis also isn't true. Raids & fractals are intended as "challenging content," so I don't expect them to be friendly to everyone (although T1 fracts certainly are accessible to just about anyone). Story mode is set up so that you can run whatever stats you like, because eventually you'll succeed regardless.

And even if that weren't true, if the stats were balanced differently, then instances and open world would also be rebalanced, and those with less skill would still find content that wasn't well suited for them.

or disabled players.You'd have to explain what you see as a game that does a bang up job supporting disabled players. What sort of disabilities do you anticipate that game designers should accommodate?

Parity can be easily improvedI don't agree that "parity" is a thing that ANet ought to worry about. You haven't made the case for it.

Separately, it might be worth requiring investment in active defense by tying it to a stat instead of making it good for free, so that glass cannon stats are properly glassy and people can build into a high-dodge playstyle if that's what they enjoy and are good at.Glass cannon builds are glassy, as you you have, yourself, acknowledged: people will die using all-offensive stat builds, which is what the term means: extra damage, with low tolerance for getting hit.

---

For just one example of a high defensive stat build:http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQJAWWn0nBtph1oBGpBMMjFcjqMAatfxcBChRyf9j/6H-jxxHABmpLAgLBAtPBAX2f4JlgDq+DRK/CAcAs7up7uB2d3d3d3dru7u7u7u7u7u7ulCoK9WA-e

That's an open world build that uses toughness as the primary stat in all gear. It's very durable and definitely not as efficient as any raid or fractal oriented build.

[Torzini.1523]

I just want to observe that in most MMOs, at least the ones I've played, DPS characters are pretty much always ideally optimised to do as much damage as possible, because that is exactly how they best serve their team. Defence is more of a "git gud" issue than a "stacking stats" issue because all death-causing mechanics are balanced to be completely avoidable (or mitigatable by support characters), and in GW2 this isn't any different.

What I'm trying to say is that no DPS worth their salt is going to bother increasing their defence in PVE even if those defences are worth four times more, because the ability to take things down faster is so valuable PLUS you don't need those extra defences anyway if you're simply playing right. So, your argument that everyone is wearing Berserker is a sign of massive imbalance doesn't actually mean anything, because it's not.

[maddoctor.2738]

Let's take a look at the complete damage formula.

Damage = ([((Weapon strength Power Skill coefficient)(95-(5 + [ (Precision - 1000) / 21 ])) + (Weapon strength Power Skill coefficient))(5 + [ (Precision - 1000) / 21 ])*[1.5 + ((Ferocity/15)/100)]]/100)/(Armor + Toughness)Then you compare this damage with the Vitality+Health of the target to see how many hits are required to kill it.

Let's take care of the non-attributes first. Our character is gonna be a Ranger (medium armor/medium health), using a Longbow at max Range (auto attack / all ascended).Weapon Strength: (966+1,134)/2 = 1533, skill coefficient: 0.9, Armor: 1118, Health: 5,922 (15922 total with Vitality)All attributes are at 1000 with the exception of Ferocity which is zero.

Damage=(1379.7Power(95-(Precision-1000)/21)+1379.7Power(5+(Precision-1000)/21)*(1.5+(Ferocity/15)/100))/100Total damage per shot: 1414192.5. Let's reduce that by armor: 1414192.5 / (1118 + 1000) = 667.7018414 or 668 rounded. This means it would take this character 24 hits to kill themselves.

+1000 Power: 12 hits, +1000 Precision: 19 hits, +1000 Ferocity: 23 hits. As you can see although Power scales well, Precision and Ferocity do not+1000 Toughness: 36 hits, +1000 Vitality: 39 hits: As you can see Vitality has a greater impact on a Ranger than Toughness but not by much. Unlike the offensive stats which lean heavily towards Power, defensive stats have very similar effects

Power vs Vitality: 20Power/Precision vs Vitality/Toughness: 24As you can see due to scaling, increasing Power+Precision against a target with higher Vitality+Toughness keeps the number of hits the same. If you check any higher levels (+2000, +3000) you will see 24 coming up.

So now you know how the attributes are balanced in pairs.

edit: this means if you reduce the effect of Power by using your proposed formulas it would destroy this balance of the game, making offensive stats worse than defensive stats, while now they are mostly equal.

[maddoctor.2738]

An addition (and to keep the above post smaller), to see how badly Precision and Ferocity scale

Base: 24Power/Precision vs Vitality/Toughness: 24 (same as base)Power/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 28Power vs Vitality/Toughness: 29Precision/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 36Power/Precision/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 19

Just increasing Power has a very similar effect to increasing Power+Ferocity (at 5% base crit chance this is to be expected) but surprisingly enough, increasing Power alone is much more efficient than increasing both Precision and Ferocity. In fact, Vitality + Toughness scale much better than Precision + Ferocity as you can see by the 50% increase in the number of hits required, from 24 to 36.

Another way to illustrate this (vs base defenses):Power + Precision: 10 hits, Power + Ferocity: 12 hits, Power alone: 12 hits, Precision + Ferocity: 16 hits, All of them: 8 hits

And then you propose new formulas that reduce the effect of Power, what would that accomplish other than making characters damage sponges.

[Zin Dau.1749]

@"Khisanth.2948" said:I wonder why a game developer wouldn't want players to be able to stand around passively and ignore enemy damage ... there can't possibly be any good reasons for that.

OP has created many such similar threads. The last one was only 1 or 2 weeks ago. We try to explain why there is no such thing as ideal stats system that balances offense and defense. Most importantly, it's human nature to want battles to end as quickly as possible, to waste as little time as possible. Hence, players themselves will always choose to maximize offense--regardless of how the stat system works (or seemingly fails to work.)

QED There is nothing to fix, because metagames are ultimately driven by human behavior, not math. And if you believe math is important, then understand that duration of combat is the most important factor. Not whether offense and defense are "balanced" on a statsheet.

[Cyninja.2954]

• Revising Attributes - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/82217/revising-attributes/p1 - July 16th, 2019 (last edited August 1)
• We really need rebalanced attributes - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/50192/we-really-need-rebalanced-attributes#latest - July 31, 2018
• Do you think defensive attributes are (generally) underpowered in PvE? - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/48480/do-you-think-defensive-attributes-are-generally-underpowered-in-pve/p1 - July 17th, 2018
• Attribute rework/cleanup - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/11229/attribute-rework-cleanup#latest - October 19, 2017
• Changes to Toughness/Vitality/Endurance - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/11227/changes-to-toughness-vitality-endurance#latest - October 19, 2017

All from TC, all on the same subject, all within a similar timeframe yearly.

That's without counting the phase in which TC was having issues with condition damage which also make up a nice 1 year span of 4-5 threads on that subject matter.

As to on this subject matter, please refer to you other thread which is barely 1 month old.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:The gist of it is that doubling your power doubles outgoing damage, while doubling your armor halves incoming damage.Almost as if the developers wanted to promote dynamic, offensive playing style over passive turtling.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:I wonder why a game developer wouldn't want players to be able to stand around passively and ignore enemy damage ... there can't possibly be any good reasons for that.

Missing the point, but nice strawman. Nobody is suggesting you should be able to stand around and not utilize the dodge system.Except, at it has been pointed out to you many times over, in multiple threads you made on the issue, the game already allows you to facetank most of the damage

if you specialize for it

. Imagine what would happen if defense ended up being even stronger than that. Or if getting that kind of defense didn't require you to sacrifice a lot of offense.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:The evidence that it's a problem is in the game itself - there's widespread consensus that using defensive stats results in a major net loss in effectivenessThat's only because "effectiveness" is practically always a derivative of only a single factor - time to kill. Increasing the defensive stats makes your time to kill rise, thus making you less effective. Nothing in your proposal changes that - the best effectiveness will always be as much offense and as least defence as the game will let you get away with. It's not a result of stat calculations. It's a result of player mindset. Nothing you can do with stats is going to change that.

It doesn't mean that defensive builds aren't effective - on the contrary, they can be amazingly effective (something you keep refusing to admit). It's just the kind of effectiveness that is not needed in most of PvE situations (and is something anet specifically doesn't want in PvP. We've had a bunker meta there already, and almost everyone hated it).

[Einlanzer.1627]

Ugh. Groupthink for the win!> @Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

The gist of it is that doubling your power doubles outgoing damage, while doubling your

armor

halves incoming damage.

Almost as if the developers wanted to promote dynamic, offensive playing style over passive turtling.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:I wonder why a game developer wouldn't want players to be able to stand around passively and ignore enemy damage ... there can't possibly be any good reasons for that.

Missing the point, but nice strawman. Nobody is suggesting you should be able to stand around and not utilize the dodge system.Except, at it has been pointed out to you many times over, in multiple threads you made on the issue, the game already allows you to facetank most of the damage

if you specialize for it

. Imagine what would happen if defense ended up being even stronger than that. Or if getting that kind of defense didn't require you to sacrifice a lot of offense.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:The evidence that it's a problem is in the game itself - there's widespread consensus that using defensive stats results in a major net loss in effectivenessThat's only because "effectiveness" is practically always a derivative of only a single factor - time to kill. Increasing the defensive stats makes your time to kill rise, thus making you less effective. Nothing in your proposal changes that - the best effectiveness will always be as much offense and as least defence as the game will let you get away with. It's not a result of stat calculations. It's a result of player mindset. Nothing you can do with stats is going to change that.

It doesn't mean that defensive builds aren't effective - on the contrary, they can be amazingly effective (something you keep refusing to admit). It's just the kind of effectiveness that is not needed in most of PvE situations (and is something anet specifically doesn't want in PvP. We've had a bunker meta there already, and almost everyone hated it).

This simply isn't true - the evidence can be seen in other games. When offensive stats and defensive stats achieve the right level of balance, the latter does become attractive. Even GW1 was this way.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@"Cyninja.2954" said:

• Revising Attributes - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/82217/revising-attributes/p1 - July 16th, 2019 (last edited August 1)
• We really need rebalanced attributes - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/50192/we-really-need-rebalanced-attributes#latest - July 31, 2018
• Do you think defensive attributes are (generally) underpowered in PvE? - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/48480/do-you-think-defensive-attributes-are-generally-underpowered-in-pve/p1 - July 17th, 2018
• Attribute rework/cleanup - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/11229/attribute-rework-cleanup#latest - October 19, 2017
• Changes to Toughness/Vitality/Endurance - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/11227/changes-to-toughness-vitality-endurance#latest - October 19, 2017

All from TC, all on the same subject, all within a similar timeframe yearly.

That's without counting the phase in which TC was having issues with condition damage which also make up a nice 1 year span of 4-5 threads on that subject matter.

As to on this subject matter, please refer to you other thread which is barely 1 month old.

Who cares? All this means is that it's something I've thought about for a long time. I actually spend a lot of time doing work on game design/mechanics between mods/patches, building/revising table-top games and working on my own PC RPG. I know what I'm talking about.

For years before that, I talked about Thief P/P, since, at the time, I mained Thief. People would routinely whine about how weak P/P felt on the forum, but they would mis-associate the main reason why to all kinds of wrong things like Body Shot. What I would state repeatedly and have dismissed was the obvious problem that Vital Shot being under-tuned was what ruined the set because it was setting too low of a damage baseline, forcing you to over-rely on Initiative dumping for unload and, in the process, starving the set out of an appropriate level of utility and mobility.

Lo and behold, it took them 5 years but they finally buffed the crap out of Vital Shot, and now it's one of the more generally usable and useful sets for the Thief.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Zin Dau.1749 said:

@"Khisanth.2948" said:I wonder why a game developer wouldn't want players to be able to stand around passively and ignore enemy damage ... there can't possibly be any good reasons for that.

OP has created many such similar threads. The last one was only 1 or 2 weeks ago. We try to explain why there is no such thing as ideal stats system that balances offense and defense. Most importantly, it's human nature to want battles to end as quickly as possible, to waste as little time as possible. Hence, players themselves will always choose to maximize offense--regardless of how the stat system works (or seemingly fails to work.)

QED There is nothing to fix, because metagames are ultimately driven by human behavior, not math. And if you believe math is important, then understand that duration of combat is the most important factor. Not whether offense and defense are "balanced" on a statsheet.

That's exactly right. This is an example of how literally no one understands what I'm actually saying. It really is just starting to seem like it's just too nuanced a topic for most posters.

It's natural that offense is valued more than defense in an MMO - which is why its harebrained to make offensive stats more effective than defensive stats. Which is why defensive stats are a useless trap. They aren't "training wheels" until you get better at the game or your class, which is what a lot of people like to wrongly suggest. They are just flat-out a worse option than offensive stats no matter your skill level.

And 2/3s of the available stat sets use defensive stats on them, making them automatic dismissals for gearing, which is why they all sell for 30 silver compared to Berserker's 8 gold. The fact that people defend this as working in the best way it can blows my mind. No, it isn't. Period.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@maddoctor.2738 said:An addition (and to keep the above post smaller), to see how badly Precision and Ferocity scale

Base: 24Power/Precision vs Vitality/Toughness: 24 (same as base)Power/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 28Power vs Vitality/Toughness: 29Precision/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 36Power/Precision/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 19

Just increasing Power has a very similar effect to increasing Power+Ferocity (at 5% base crit chance this is to be expected) but surprisingly enough, increasing Power alone is much more efficient than increasing both Precision and Ferocity. In fact, Vitality + Toughness scale much better than Precision + Ferocity as you can see by the 50% increase in the number of hits required, from 24 to 36.

Another way to illustrate this (vs base defenses):Power + Precision: 10 hits, Power + Ferocity: 12 hits, Power alone: 12 hits, Precision + Ferocity: 16 hits, All of them: 8 hits

And then you propose new formulas that reduce the effect of Power, what would that accomplish other than making characters damage sponges.

The misses the fact that Precision and Ferocity scale off of power, not independently, which is why Power is massively over-emphasized in the game's combat mechanics. The issue is not that Precision and Ferocity are too strong (in fact, if anything it's the opposite) - it's the fact that they increase the magnitude of Power's effectiveness when Power is already too effective.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:An addition (and to keep the above post smaller), to see how badly Precision and Ferocity scale

Base: 24Power/Precision vs Vitality/Toughness: 24 (same as base)Power/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 28Power vs Vitality/Toughness: 29Precision/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 36Power/Precision/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 19

Just increasing Power has a very similar effect to increasing Power+Ferocity (at 5% base crit chance this is to be expected) but surprisingly enough, increasing Power alone is much more efficient than increasing both Precision and Ferocity. In fact, Vitality + Toughness scale much better than Precision + Ferocity as you can see by the 50% increase in the number of hits required, from 24 to 36.

Another way to illustrate this (vs base defenses):Power + Precision: 10 hits, Power + Ferocity: 12 hits, Power alone: 12 hits, Precision + Ferocity: 16 hits, All of them: 8 hits

And then you propose new formulas that reduce the effect of Power, what would that accomplish other than making characters damage sponges.

The misses the fact that Precision and Ferocity scale off of power, not independently, which is why Power is massively over-emphasized in the game's combat mechanics. The issue is not that Precision and Ferocity are too strong (in fact, if anything it's the opposite) - it's the fact that they increase the magnitude of Power's effectiveness when Power is already too effective.

Precision+Ferocity is worse than Power alone. While increasing Power, Precision, Toughness and Vitality by 1000 keeps the damage exactly the same. So why do you say that offensive stats are better than defensive ones? That should tell you that statistically the attributes in the game are actually balanced. What you are asking for is to make them imbalanced. I even provided you the result of using all 3 offensive attributes vs Vitality+Toughness and it saves just 5 hits. 19 instead of 24. That's about 20% higher effectiveness of THREE offensive stats versus TWO defensive ones. 20%!

[Einlanzer.1627]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:An addition (and to keep the above post smaller), to see how badly Precision and Ferocity scale

Base: 24Power/Precision vs Vitality/Toughness: 24 (same as base)Power/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 28Power vs Vitality/Toughness: 29Precision/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 36Power/Precision/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 19

Just increasing Power has a very similar effect to increasing Power+Ferocity (at 5% base crit chance this is to be expected) but surprisingly enough, increasing Power alone is much more efficient than increasing both Precision and Ferocity. In fact, Vitality + Toughness scale much better than Precision + Ferocity as you can see by the 50% increase in the number of hits required, from 24 to 36.

Another way to illustrate this (vs base defenses):Power + Precision: 10 hits, Power + Ferocity: 12 hits, Power alone: 12 hits, Precision + Ferocity: 16 hits, All of them: 8 hits

And then you propose new formulas that reduce the effect of Power, what would that accomplish other than making characters damage sponges.

The misses the fact that Precision and Ferocity scale off of power, not independently, which is why Power is massively over-emphasized in the game's combat mechanics. The issue is not that Precision and Ferocity are too strong (in fact, if anything it's the opposite) - it's the fact that they increase the magnitude of Power's effectiveness when Power is already too effective.

Precision+Ferocity is worse than Power alone. While increasing Power, Precision, Toughness and Vitality by 1000 keeps the damage exactly the same. So why do you say that offensive stats are better than defensive ones? That should tell you that statistically the attributes in the game are actually balanced. What you are asking for is to make them imbalanced. I even provided you the result of using all 3 offensive attributes vs Vitality+Toughness and it saves just 5 hits. 19 instead of 24. That's about 20% higher effectiveness of THREE offensive stats versus TWO defensive ones. 20%!

Because Power alone is more effective than both Toughness and Vitality independently. And there are two other offensive stats that help magnify it further.

Now, with that said - I do see your point. That, while Power is easily the most effective of all the stats, Power + Precision is balanced with Vitality vs Toughness, and that's because offensive stats are weighted disproportionately toward Power while defensive stats are more equal. I'm still trying to make sure I'm in agreement with that.

Even so, what I'm actually suggesting is that the attributes do want to be slightly imbalanced in a way that favors defense, because offense carries more natural value. It's also the case that Vitality is slightly more useful than Toughness. My proposal of adding a minor damage subtraction component on Toughness might actually be the best improvement to make because it would offset the diminishing returns of Toughness and help make it not just redundant with active defense, since its effect would be more significant vs a lot of minor hits that you can't dodge anyway than major hits coming from big enemies that you're expected to dodge.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Now, with that said - I do see your point. That, while Power is easily the most effective of all the stats, Power + Precision is balanced with Vitality vs Toughness, and that's because offensive stats are weighted disproportionately toward Power while defensive stats are more equal. I'm still trying to make sure I'm in agreement with that.

The reason Power is so much better is to make support/tank builds offer some damage to the team. If the three offensive stats were perfectly balanced, the gap between support/tank builds and pure offensive builds would be even higher. By making Power so much better it allows stat sets like Marauder to stay competitive with Berserker. Do note that meta builds use Harrier and back then Cleric as gear stats. Even condi builds use Power, Viper, Sinister, Griever. Rabid and Dire sets are dead. The one common stat everywhere, regardless of build, is Power. Make Power worse (and compensate increasing Ferocity and Precision) and the gaps will widen, build variety will suffer instead of getting better.

Meme Minstrel and Nomad builds are the only exceptions.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Now, with that said - I do see your point. That, while Power is easily the most effective of all the stats, Power + Precision is balanced with Vitality vs Toughness, and that's because offensive stats are weighted disproportionately toward Power while defensive stats are more equal. I'm still trying to make sure I'm in agreement with that.

The reason Power is so much better is to make support/tank builds offer some damage to the team. If the three offensive stats were perfectly balanced, the gap between support/tank builds and pure offensive builds would be even higher. By making Power so much better it allows stat sets like Marauder to stay competitive with Berserker. Do note that meta builds use Harrier and back then Cleric as gear stats. Even condi builds use Power, Viper, Sinister, Griever. Rabid and Dire sets are dead. The one common stat everywhere, regardless of build, is Power. Make Power worse (and compensate increasing Ferocity and Precision) and the gaps will widen, build variety will suffer instead of getting better.

Meme Minstrel and Nomad builds are the only exceptions.

I don't disagree with this and it has helped expand my thoughts. Thanks for that. But I still think there's a problem, just maybe not one best served by my original proposal of reducing Power's effect in the damage formula. See my edited posts above and let me know your thoughts on the last paragraph.