The importance of Build Diversity and why it's more important than balance.

JusticeRetroHunter.7684 · November 9, 2019

@"Cyninja.2954" said:I have to step in here. I see this argument brought up often, combined with the argument that GW1 had over 1,000 skills.
While factually true, that does not automatically equal productive diversity (or as God.2708 put it, not arguing from a fair place). While it is true that GW1 had dual classes, very often there was one or very few "best in slot" setups even as far as wanting a primary class with certain secondary classes. As far as group compositions, GW1 was less riggid in composition because thanks to abuse of AI and the general ability of secondary classes to still perform certain roles, even if not ideally. Most obvious was probably necromancers which given their energy regeneration mechanic were able to outperform most other classes the moment kills were present.
The same goes for skills. 90% of the GW1 skills were trash tier or severly outlcasses by the 10% which actually saw use. This might shuffle and change with balance patches, but overall a very great amount of skills were effectively useless (and some even strait up copies of each other).
GW2 in comparison has a far lower amount of skills, but many have actual use and are not trash tier. Some might be niche or game mode dependant, but overall I'd say the relative amount of skills which make their way into useful builds is way higher in GW2 versus GW1. Similar in role performance. There is a ton of roles which every class can perform, only that there is far more optimization happening in GW2 than there ever was in GW1 (or you'd have to only count the absolute best meta builds used, which reduces the amount of deiversity severly in GW1 too).

I just don't see how you can reach that conclusion. Like i said, gw1 had it's sets of issues. Monks being a requirement in spvp was one of them (Yes i think we all remember the /resign when your team didn't have a monk)

But to say the game wasn't diverse is just...not to be harsh, but delusional. There's only one meta game right now in wvw...it's Firebrand and Scourge...and it's been that way for 2 or 3 years now (whenever PoF came out). In gw1 there's been hundreds of TEAM meta's in gvg alone, and all of them equally viable. Hundreds in HA and hundreds in TA and hundreds in JQ/FA. Just look at this page https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Category:Meta_working_GvG_buildsThat's just a fraction of the GVG builds considered Meta at some point in the game (The website where these builds were kept was taken down...that had a lot more), and this doesn't even include all the Great/Good team comps that could actually compete with the meta comps.

God.2708 · November 10, 2019

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
@"Cyninja.2954" said:I have to step in here. I see this argument brought up often, combined with the argument that GW1 had over 1,000 skills.
While factually true, that does not automatically equal productive diversity (or as God.2708 put it, not arguing from a fair place). While it is true that GW1 had dual classes, very often there was one or very few "best in slot" setups even as far as wanting a primary class with certain secondary classes. As far as group compositions, GW1 was less riggid in composition because thanks to abuse of AI and the general ability of secondary classes to still perform certain roles, even if not ideally. Most obvious was probably necromancers which given their energy regeneration mechanic were able to outperform most other classes the moment kills were present.
The same goes for skills. 90% of the GW1 skills were trash tier or severly outlcasses by the 10% which actually saw use. This might shuffle and change with balance patches, but overall a very great amount of skills were effectively useless (and some even strait up copies of each other).
GW2 in comparison has a far lower amount of skills, but many have actual use and are not trash tier. Some might be niche or game mode dependant, but overall I'd say the relative amount of skills which make their way into useful builds is way higher in GW2 versus GW1. Similar in role performance. There is a ton of roles which every class can perform, only that there is far more optimization happening in GW2 than there ever was in GW1 (or you'd have to only count the absolute best meta builds used, which reduces the amount of deiversity severly in GW1 too).

I just don't see how you can reach that conclusion. Like i said, gw1 had it's sets of issues. Monks being a requirement in spvp was one of them (Yes i think we all remember the /resign when your team didn't have a monk)

But to say the game wasn't diverse is just...not to be harsh, but delusional. There's only one meta game right now in wvw...it's Firebrand and Scourge...and it's been that way for 2 or 3 years now (whenever PoF came out). In gw1 there's been hundreds of TEAM meta's in gvg alone, and all of them equally viable. Hundreds in HA and hundreds in TA and hundreds in JQ/FA. Just look at this page

https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Category:Meta_working_GvG_builds

That's just a fraction of the GVG builds considered Meta at some point in the game (The website where these builds were kept was taken down...that had a lot more), and this doesn't even include all the Great/Good team comps that could actually compete with the meta comps.

And again, you aren't arguing from a fair place. I just clicked two GvG builds (Dual Elementalist and GvG Elementalist split because elementalist was my primary in GW1). It has identical monks and mesmer, a set of elementalist builds that are for the most part functionally identical (lightning spikers with CC+energy management), and then changes what form of melee pressure the comp provides (two eles vs dervish + interrupter). Then you point to GW2 and go 'Look its just FB and scourge!' When healbrands have approximately 4 different variations they can run in a zerg and still be effective and another half dozen variations they can use situationally depending on the rest of the party and commanders purpose. Scourge likewise has something like 4 different build play styles I can think of off the top of my head.

If you can point to a list of 15 GvG builds that all run the same kitten 3 monks and mesmer and say 'LOOK DIVERSE' I can point to GW2 and say it is plenty diverse. The real delusion here is thinking that somehow being able to pick any set of 50 utility skills and 65 traits and it work is even possible, much less an effort worth pursuing.

I addressed your main point and it is the one you have completely ignored, possibly because you aren't entirely sure what you are trying to say and have to keep pointing to the videos (which I have watched and was already very familiar with subject matter wise anyway). Systematic changes do indeed arise from individuals. Not all individual impacts are equal. The current build diversity is based around these high impact individuals decisions to make things simple rather than try to herd cats while manually checking dozens of peoples builds to see how they work together. It is NO DIFFERENT than those players who stand in HA or TA that would shout 'looking for IWAY Ranger' and then would ping the build for the player to load and run in their composition, just like 90% of other players are doing in the 'diverse' game that was GW1 whilst 2 or 3 teams would craft something particularly special, and both would get nerfed a patch or two later.

The game is chocked full of individuals making unique builds that have butterfly effects on fights. Just like the game is full of individuals that run the same thing for the sake of simplicity of explanation of a tired person who's sick of having to explain how to drop wells on call in the same spot for the 7th year in a row. You are pointing to people trying to keep their ducks in a row and saying 'no diversity' then asking ANET of all people to fix it like they haven't somehow been stating 'for the sake of build diversity and purity of purpose we are...' in the last 20 balance patches.

Dawdler.8521 · November 10, 2019

And I still have no idea what this thread is even about. Is there build diversity now? Yes, depending on what style of gameplay you look at. Is it more important than balance? What does that even mean?

Cyninja.2954 · November 10, 2019

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:snip

What God.2708 said. If you can't see how limited the meta in GW1 actually was, you are not as analytically unbiased as you might think you are.

At the top end, the GW1 meta was similar or less diverse than the GW2 meta. The fact that the skill amount and possible combinations of skills was padded with a huge chunk of useless possibilities, paired with a general possibility to abuse AI in PvE and general fixed setup in GvG with almost identical class builds, does not mean the game was more diverse in a productive way. You actually need to look past sheer numbers of fluff and take a deep dive into actual build diversity at all steps of

The only issue where GW1 outperformed GW2 from a competative and diversity standpoint was the distribution and reduced complexity of its condition and boon system. Which helped make the pvp experience be more understandable (both for participants and viewers), manageable and designable accross multiple classes. Which is in direct contrast to the stability situation, the boon system and to some extent the condition system in GW2, which are mostly limited heavily to certain classes and specs.

Simply put:GW2 has more useful diversity at the near top end but way less diversity accross its entire roster of builds (simply by mere fact that there is less skill padding).GW1 has similar or less diversity at the near top end but way more possible diversity accross its entire build functions.

JusticeRetroHunter.7684 · November 10, 2019

@God.2708 said:
@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
@"Cyninja.2954" said:I have to step in here. I see this argument brought up often, combined with the argument that GW1 had over 1,000 skills.
While factually true, that does not automatically equal productive diversity (or as God.2708 put it, not arguing from a fair place). While it is true that GW1 had dual classes, very often there was one or very few "best in slot" setups even as far as wanting a primary class with certain secondary classes. As far as group compositions, GW1 was less riggid in composition because thanks to abuse of AI and the general ability of secondary classes to still perform certain roles, even if not ideally. Most obvious was probably necromancers which given their energy regeneration mechanic were able to outperform most other classes the moment kills were present.
The same goes for skills. 90% of the GW1 skills were trash tier or severly outlcasses by the 10% which actually saw use. This might shuffle and change with balance patches, but overall a very great amount of skills were effectively useless (and some even strait up copies of each other).
GW2 in comparison has a far lower amount of skills, but many have actual use and are not trash tier. Some might be niche or game mode dependant, but overall I'd say the relative amount of skills which make their way into useful builds is way higher in GW2 versus GW1. Similar in role performance. There is a ton of roles which every class can perform, only that there is far more optimization happening in GW2 than there ever was in GW1 (or you'd have to only count the absolute best meta builds used, which reduces the amount of deiversity severly in GW1 too).

I just don't see how you can reach that conclusion. Like i said, gw1 had it's sets of issues. Monks being a requirement in spvp was one of them (Yes i think we all remember the /resign when your team didn't have a monk)

But to say the game wasn't diverse is just...not to be harsh, but delusional. There's only one meta game right now in wvw...it's Firebrand and Scourge...and it's been that way for 2 or 3 years now (whenever PoF came out). In gw1 there's been hundreds of TEAM meta's in gvg alone, and all of them equally viable. Hundreds in HA and hundreds in TA and hundreds in JQ/FA. Just look at this page

https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Category:Meta_working_GvG_builds

That's just a fraction of the GVG builds considered Meta at some point in the game (The website where these builds were kept was taken down...that had a lot more), and this doesn't even include all the Great/Good team comps that could actually compete with the meta comps.

And again, you aren't arguing from a fair place. I just clicked two GvG builds (Dual Elementalist and GvG Elementalist split because elementalist was my primary in GW1). It has identical monks and mesmer, a set of elementalist builds that are for the most part functionally identical (lightning spikers with CC+energy management), and then changes what form of melee pressure the comp provides (two eles vs dervish + interrupter). Then you point to GW2 and go 'Look its just FB and scourge!' When healbrands have approximately 4 different variations they can run in a zerg and still be effective and another half dozen variations they can use situationally depending on the rest of the party and commanders purpose. Scourge likewise has something like 4 different build play styles I can think of off the top of my head.

If you can point to a list of 15 GvG builds that all run the same kitten 3 monks and mesmer and say 'LOOK DIVERSE' I can point to GW2 and say it is plenty diverse. The real delusion here is thinking that somehow being able to pick any set of 50 utility skills and 65 traits and it work is even possible, much less an effort worth pursuing.

I addressed your main point and it is the one you have completely ignored, possibly because you aren't entirely sure what you are trying to say and have to keep pointing to the videos (which I have watched and was already very familiar with subject matter wise anyway). Systematic changes do indeed arise from individuals. Not all individual impacts are equal. The current build diversity is based around these high impact individuals decisions to make things simple rather than try to herd cats while manually checking dozens of peoples builds to see how they work together. It is NO DIFFERENT than those players who stand in HA or TA that would shout 'looking for IWAY Ranger' and then would ping the build for the player to load and run in their composition, just like 90% of other players are doing in the 'diverse' game that was GW1 whilst 2 or 3 teams would craft something particularly special, and both would get nerfed a patch or two later.

The game is chocked full of individuals making unique builds that have butterfly effects on fights. Just like the game is full of individuals that run the same thing for the sake of simplicity of explanation of a tired person who's sick of having to explain how to drop wells on call in the same spot for the 7th year in a row. You are pointing to people trying to keep their ducks in a row and saying 'no diversity' then asking ANET of all people to fix it like they haven't somehow been stating 'for the sake of build diversity and purity of purpose we are...' in the last 20 balance patches.

So you took two GvG builds that are similar and said "Look how similar they are." That's like taking a cat and lynx and saying that they look similar and have 95% same DNA... therefor evolution is a big phat lie.

Most team builds from gw1 almost always functioned completely different from each other. Invoke spike was drastically different as to how it worked than Ebomb for example. This is like comparing an Amoeba to a Frog. Frog's and amoebas share probably 50% of the same DNA...but they are completely different creatures that function completely differently. Is it fair to say that the two in that case are not diverse?

Look at gw2 now. Tell me, how many team composition that function differently from each other? There's probably a handful i can count with my fingers that functioned remotely differently, a few that come from every era after an expansion. (Melle Ball and Pirate Ship are two i can count from POF...).

Whatever idea you have in your head of what diversity is, you need to reevaluate it, and perhaps do more research on the subject. Diversity is how two or more things can function differently to achieve the same goals... like an amoebae and a frog both look for food, survive and procreate, they both do it completely differently, but they are both capable of reaching their goals.

Cyninja.2954 · November 10, 2019

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
@God.2708 said:
@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
@"Cyninja.2954" said:I have to step in here. I see this argument brought up often, combined with the argument that GW1 had over 1,000 skills.
While factually true, that does not automatically equal productive diversity (or as God.2708 put it, not arguing from a fair place). While it is true that GW1 had dual classes, very often there was one or very few "best in slot" setups even as far as wanting a primary class with certain secondary classes. As far as group compositions, GW1 was less riggid in composition because thanks to abuse of AI and the general ability of secondary classes to still perform certain roles, even if not ideally. Most obvious was probably necromancers which given their energy regeneration mechanic were able to outperform most other classes the moment kills were present.
The same goes for skills. 90% of the GW1 skills were trash tier or severly outlcasses by the 10% which actually saw use. This might shuffle and change with balance patches, but overall a very great amount of skills were effectively useless (and some even strait up copies of each other).
GW2 in comparison has a far lower amount of skills, but many have actual use and are not trash tier. Some might be niche or game mode dependant, but overall I'd say the relative amount of skills which make their way into useful builds is way higher in GW2 versus GW1. Similar in role performance. There is a ton of roles which every class can perform, only that there is far more optimization happening in GW2 than there ever was in GW1 (or you'd have to only count the absolute best meta builds used, which reduces the amount of deiversity severly in GW1 too).

I just don't see how you can reach that conclusion. Like i said, gw1 had it's sets of issues. Monks being a requirement in spvp was one of them (Yes i think we all remember the /resign when your team didn't have a monk)

But to say the game wasn't diverse is just...not to be harsh, but delusional. There's only one meta game right now in wvw...it's Firebrand and Scourge...and it's been that way for 2 or 3 years now (whenever PoF came out). In gw1 there's been hundreds of TEAM meta's in gvg alone, and all of them equally viable. Hundreds in HA and hundreds in TA and hundreds in JQ/FA. Just look at this page

https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Category:Meta_working_GvG_builds

That's just a fraction of the GVG builds considered Meta at some point in the game (The website where these builds were kept was taken down...that had a lot more), and this doesn't even include all the Great/Good team comps that could actually compete with the meta comps.

And again, you aren't arguing from a fair place. I just clicked two GvG builds (Dual Elementalist and GvG Elementalist split because elementalist was my primary in GW1). It has identical monks and mesmer, a set of elementalist builds that are for the most part functionally identical (lightning spikers with CC+energy management), and then changes what form of melee pressure the comp provides (two eles vs dervish + interrupter). Then you point to GW2 and go 'Look its just FB and scourge!' When healbrands have approximately 4 different variations they can run in a zerg and still be effective and another half dozen variations they can use situationally depending on the rest of the party and commanders purpose. Scourge likewise has something like 4 different build play styles I can think of off the top of my head.

If you can point to a list of 15 GvG builds that all run the same kitten 3 monks and mesmer and say 'LOOK DIVERSE' I can point to GW2 and say it is plenty diverse. The real delusion here is thinking that somehow being able to pick any set of 50 utility skills and 65 traits and it work is even possible, much less an effort worth pursuing.

I addressed your main point and it is the one you have completely ignored, possibly because you aren't entirely sure what you are trying to say and have to keep pointing to the videos (which I have watched and was already very familiar with subject matter wise anyway). Systematic changes do indeed arise from individuals. Not all individual impacts are equal. The current build diversity is based around these high impact individuals decisions to make things simple rather than try to herd cats while manually checking dozens of peoples builds to see how they work together. It is NO DIFFERENT than those players who stand in HA or TA that would shout 'looking for IWAY Ranger' and then would ping the build for the player to load and run in their composition, just like 90% of other players are doing in the 'diverse' game that was GW1 whilst 2 or 3 teams would craft something particularly special, and both would get nerfed a patch or two later.

The game is chocked full of individuals making unique builds that have butterfly effects on fights. Just like the game is full of individuals that run the same thing for the sake of simplicity of explanation of a tired person who's sick of having to explain how to drop wells on call in the same spot for the 7th year in a row. You are pointing to people trying to keep their ducks in a row and saying 'no diversity' then asking ANET of all people to fix it like they haven't somehow been stating 'for the sake of build diversity and purity of purpose we are...' in the last 20 balance patches.

So you took two GvG builds that are similar and said "Look how similar they are." That's like taking a cat and lynx and saying that they look similar and have 95% same DNA... therefor evolution is a big phat lie.

and yet when watching plays at the top end, you'd see almost all teams run the exact same build until a new meta was found.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:Most team builds from gw1 almost always functioned completely different from each other. Invoke spike was drastically different as to how it worked than Ebomb for example. This is like comparing an Amoeba to a Frog. Frog's and amoebas share probably 50% of the same DNA...but they are completely different creatures that function completely differently. Is it fair to say that the two in that case are not diverse?Look at gw2 now. Tell me, how many team composition that function differently from each other? There's probably a handful i can count with my fingers that functioned remotely differently, a few that come from every era after an expansion. (Melle Ball and Pirate Ship are two i can count from POF...).

You are literally comparing apples to oranges. GvG was a fixed game mode. Comparing it to WvW is beyond asinine. If you want to compare GvG of GW1 with GW2, look at the rosters being run in GW2 for GvG fights. Then try to adapt to different sized groups as well.

Also you are now comparing entire setups versus actual builds in those setups. Melee ball can be played with a ton of different classes in GW2, as long as you have your bases covered in terms of control and support. Pirate Ship is a general term for keeping the fight at mid-long range, yet has seen multiple different ways of being played.

If you want to compare GvG to WvW, then how about we also take into account small scale, roaming and 1vx builds? How does GW1 stack up to those build possibilities? Not well I'd assume since the game mode was not present there.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:Whatever idea you have in your head of what diversity is, you need to reevaluate it, and perhaps do more research on the subject. Diversity is how two or more things can function differently to achieve the same goals... like an amoebae and a frog both look for food, survive and procreate, they both do it completely differently, but they are both capable of reaching their goals.

That's your personal definition, maybe you need to be more clear on your definition of diversity and stop forming your argument around your personal definition.

The actual definition of diversity:

Definition of diversity
1 : the condition of having or being composed of differing elements : variety especially : the inclusion of different types of people (such as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization programs intended to promote diversity in schools2 : an instance of being composed of differing elements or qualities : an instance of being diverse a diversity of opinion
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diversity

there is no mention of the requirement achieving any goals. It all relates to composition only. Obviously there is some disagreement about how much effective diversity there is/was, but don't tell people to check their definitions of terms you are missusing yourself.

Voltekka.2375 · November 10, 2019

@"DemonSeed.3528" said:If you want Anet to go down the nightmare route scenario, they could lock us into preset "builds". That means no longer any more custom choosing our own traits, stats, skills, gear, weapons. They will then achieve true "balance" for whatever "vision" of WvW that they have.

Do i hear "introduce pvp amulet system in wvw"?

Voltekka.2375 · November 10, 2019

@"Dawdler.8521" said:And I still have no idea what this thread is even about. Is there build diversity now? Yes, depending on what style of gameplay you look at. Is it more important than balance? What does that even mean?

I dont understand 100% myself, but from what i got its something around "nerf ranged meta make it melee meta so more classes can play"

JusticeRetroHunter.7684 · November 10, 2019

@"Cyninja.2954" said:there is no mention of the requirement achieving any goals. It all relates to composition only. Obviously there is some disagreement about how much effective diversity there is/was, but don't tell people to check their definitions of terms you are missusing yourself.

You said it yourself

! "While factually true, that does not automatically equal productive diversity"what we are talking about here is productive diversity (which isn't actually a real term, but a formalism derived from what would seemingly be, an environment that encourages build diversity)

Your "productive diversity" is the formalism i'm talking about when i derive it from complexity theory.

You can't just slap together a bunch of rando gear, rando abilities and rando traits and say we have build diversity. The build you make has to actually serve a function...those functions are the goals of the autonomous agent whatever they might be. The more builds one can create that successfully achieve the goals of the autonomous agent is "productive" diversity.

If you are wondering there is a formalism for what we are talking about (because linking a webster definition just obscures the conversation with conflicts over semantics...because diversity has different definitions depending on the field of study...) but i will explain it in your own words so that we can keep the context of this discussion relevant to gw2, so that nobody gets confused.

DemonSeed.3528 · November 10, 2019

@Voltekka.2375 said:
@"DemonSeed.3528" said:If you want Anet to go down the nightmare route scenario, they could lock us into preset "builds". That means no longer any more custom choosing our own traits, stats, skills, gear, weapons. They will then achieve true "balance" for whatever "vision" of WvW that they have.

Do i hear "introduce pvp amulet system in wvw"?

No, an even more nightmarish version - everything is picked including all traits/gear/skills lol. Essentially it will be so simplified you only get a choice of "dps" or "support". There will be only power builds and no more condition builds. There will no more be anything, no choosing any stat, sigil, amulet, nothing. Muhahah. Anet will choose for you what they want you to play.

Voltekka.2375 · November 10, 2019

@DemonSeed.3528 said:
@Voltekka.2375 said:
@DemonSeed.3528 said:If you want Anet to go down the nightmare route scenario, they could lock us into preset "builds". That means no longer any more custom choosing our own traits, stats, skills, gear, weapons. They will then achieve true "balance" for whatever "vision" of WvW that they have.

Do i hear "introduce pvp amulet system in wvw"?

No, an even more nightmarish version - everything is picked including all traits/gear/skills lol. Essentially it will be so simplified you only get a choice of "dps" or "support". There will be only power builds and no more condition builds. There will no more be anything, no choosing any stat, sigil, amulet, nothing. Muhahah. Anet will choose for you what they want you to play.

I love this! Will balance stuff

ThomasC.1056 · November 10, 2019

Hello,

To begin with, I'm not really sure that using zergs as an example is such a good idea. Not that zergs don't exist, but there're other issues that come under the "diversity vs. balance" topic, that concern small scale and even... the case of the absence of players !

Eventhough the question of diversity vs. balance is relevant, I'm not really sure what complexity has to do with it. For now, I think it's more a matter of semantics.

So, what is balance ?

So where does Build Diversity come into play? Consider that every individual is running a build. If every individual ran the same build (Homogeneous group), and this build was considered to be the best way to follow the three rules above, then build diversity is essentially a flat-line...and the game is considered "Balanced." You can see that this type of game-play is not far from where we currently are in the state of the game...where two classes dominate the meta-game for builds in WvW (Firebrands, Scourge's).

I agree with that, but you're forgetting the part where players fight each others. So if you take two players with the same build, and you set them in a fight, that won't be a 100 years fight, and one of them should eventually win. It can be a matter of pure skill, which is fine, but there also are IG builds that one-shot you out of the blue, in a time shorter than the mean human reaction time, which is not. So even if the situation is everyone runs the same build it can also come to unbalance, because of the intrinsic mechanic that allow a player to be helpless.

From balance to diversityAnother balance question was mentioned in some ESO update where they were talking about balance and class design. Roughly, the points were :

Each class should be able to do everything in its way, which covers both the class theme and the mechanics (AoE vs targeted, for example)
Some class will be better than other at a given role.I think these remarks are worth for every MMO. To me, it's a good target, because in that way, each player can find both a fulfilling and appealing playstyle.

That said, in GW2 situation, if you take a given role, let's say : AoE boon generation, some classes are really shining, while others are less effective, with a really strong discrepancy which dismisses some options. Then, even in the mechanics, some options are incredibly more effective than others.

To sum it up : if you define a given role (or rule, as you call it), eventhough some of the 27 specs will raise their hands telling "I can do that", which is diversity, the amount of choices is lower, because of discrepancies in effectiveness, which is balance.

Deeper into diversity

Let's look at World verse World...a perfect example of complexity and chaos theory put into practice in a video game. Each individual player in a zerg is acting on a basic set of rules. These rules would probably look something like this;
! 1. Stay close to the commander! 2. Survive! 3. Kill others.

now, with these simple rules, we can see that players will proactively shape the builds they create, and then act in way that will satisfy the above three rules.

You used these examples, and it's fair, eventhough the "survive" and "kill others" cover far more rules than only that, but I can understand you summed it up for the sake of simplicity. Now, it also shows how ANet could work for more diversity, and through that, more balance. There need to be more rules, as you call them, or just more ways to play.

In the current situation, you roughly have zergs and small scale, which boil down to the ability to get boons quick (best sustain option ?), and to deal damage (stunlocks, dps or condis). As these choices are currently the best performing, the options are narrow because only a few specs are really effective as that : FB for AoE boon generation, Scourges for boon denial, SB for boon generation+DPS etc.

So the first lever to balance through diversity would be toning down the best mechanics, and raising the neglected ones, so that more playstyles can be valid choices. Balance would come from the "don't put all your eggs in the same basket" philosophy, because as diversity would raise, more varied encounters would require a more polyvalent build, which is intrinsically toned down. Currently, as only a few mechanics are overperforming, you can roughly put all your eggs in the same basket and be fine, which leads to powercreep, because the one who can stack more in a specific style will win. That part concerns small scale more than zergs. Specifically for zerg, as others stated, splitting and distributing amongst more classes would be better for diversity in composition.

Another lever would be the game mechanics for themselves. If the only thing WvW has to provide is fights, then the options will be limited because players will look for the best options for that. It's the same for conquest PvP : area denial is very strong, because it's one the way the match works. In a "get the relic and bring it back" system, mobility and sustain can become more prevalent, and players protecting the holder won't necessarily spec like a zergling or a roamer. So one of the way ANet can bring more diversity is through the gamemode core mechanics.

Conclusion

The game mode should offer various objectives for players to fulfill. That said, for a specific purpose, the player has to make a choice amongst all the possibilities (classes...) and that choice will be a compromise between what they want to do (diversity here), how they like to play, and what works for that purpose. The latter needs both diversity (choices) and balance (no choice should be overperforming compared to others).

Yet, if the player community only want fights, and despise any other game mechanic because "it's PvE", what can honestly ANet do ?

Now, fights are a specific situation, because one of the players will lose, yet everyone should have fun. Which leads to a balance question : if some builds are able to let the opponent helpless (eg : stunlocks, extra-fast one-shot build), that's not desirable. Behind this is the TTK question, which has to be a compromise between : leaving enough time for everyside to do its best and feel like it, and not make things drag too long and be eventually boring.

And it leaves now large scale, where group composition becomes more prevalent, and as you're saying, the group behaviour and effectiveness isn't the sum of all it's components. To me, this is the only part where complexity matters.

Cyninja.2954 · November 10, 2019

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
@"Cyninja.2954" said:there is no mention of the requirement achieving any goals. It all relates to composition only. Obviously there is some disagreement about how much effective diversity there is/was, but don't tell people to check their definitions of terms you are missusing yourself.

You said it yourself

! "While factually true, that does not automatically equal productive diversity"what we are talking about here is productive diversity (which isn't actually a real term, but a formalism derived from what would seemingly be, an environment that encourages build diversity)

Your "productive diversity" is the formalism i'm talking about when i derive it from complexity theory.

You can't just slap together a bunch of rando gear, rando abilities and rando traits and say we have build diversity. The build you make has to actually serve a function...those functions are the goals of the autonomous agent whatever they might be. The more builds one can create that successfully achieve the goals of the autonomous agent is "productive" diversity.

No you can not, and once you look past these random runes, random abilities and random classes, you'll notice that the build diveristy of builds which were actually useful was quite small for GW1.

So take your own advice and apply your appraoch to GW1 builds the same way you are looking at GW2 builds and ideally don't compare completely different game modes, or account for the differences.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:If you are wondering there is a formalism for what we are talking about (because linking a webster definition just obscures the conversation with conflicts over semantics...because diversity has different definitions depending on the field of study...) but i will explain it in your own words so that we can keep the context of this discussion relevant to gw2, so that nobody gets confused.

You were the one starting with semantics trying to invalidate someone elses opinion/argument. Or how else was this to be understood?:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:Whatever idea you have in your head of what diversity is, you need to reevaluate it, and perhaps do more research on the subject. Diversity is how two or more things can function differently to achieve the same goals...

You are correct, diversity can have different meaning depending on field, now show me which field exactly relates to gaming and at what point did you specify that is the only definition of diversity which is to apply to this discussion, before attacking someone else opinion/argument that is.

JusticeRetroHunter.7684 · November 10, 2019

@Cyninja.2954 said:You are correct, diversity can have different meaning depending on field, now show me which field exactly relates to gaming and at what point did you specify that is the only definition of diversity which is to apply to this discussion, before attacking someone else opinion/argument that is.

Again you are pulling this into a battle over semantics. There is no field of gaming...that's why "Build Diversity" doesn't have a direct formalism outside of this game, and that's why it has to be derived, from a field of study that is well understood, which is the whole point in this thread to begin with. I've already derived build diversity from complexity theory (check the 3rd comment where i exactly draw the formalism), which in itself is taken from biodiversity... I've explained all this already.

And yes the reason this all started is because you have a different definition of diversity in your head, which can be a valid definition (in fact all definitions of diversity are valid and the same) but when formalized to a particular field, those definitions take on more precise meaning...that's where you are getting mistaken and it's bringing the topic into a downward spiral into "he said she said."

Go to the 3rd comment on this post, that's it, the end.

@Cyninja.2954 said:No you can not, and once you look past these random runes, random abilities and random classes, you'll notice that the build diveristy of builds which were actually useful was quite small for GW1.So take your own advice and apply your approach to GW1 builds the same way you are looking at GW2 builds and ideally don't compare completely different game modes, or account for the differences.

This is really where we disagree. not over semantics, but this single statement. You say gw1 didn't have that many useful builds, when it has way more actual useful builds OBJECTIVELY than gw2. I pointed to just a single page of maybe hundreds of build pages, each build being viable and working that commonly could fight meta builds, win tournaments and were considered drastically different in composition, enough of a difference in functionality to warrant their own build pages. The keywords here is that these were different in functionality. You believe that the builds aren't different when, they were wildly different and i provide the example of Ebomb and Spiritway and Hexway as both being functionally different builds, that are all capable meta compositions....

anyway I've ran out of the energy to repeat myself any longer, and i'm moving on to other comments.

God.2708 · November 10, 2019

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:
This is really where we disagree. not over semantics, but this single statement. You say gw1 didn't have that many useful builds, when it has way more actual useful builds OBJECTIVELY than gw2. I pointed to just a single page of maybe hundreds of build pages, each build being viable and working that commonly could fight meta builds, win tournaments and were considered drastically different in composition, enough of a difference in functionality to warrant their own build pages. The keywords here is that these were different in functionality. You believe that the builds aren't different when, they were wildly different and i provide the example of Ebomb and Spiritway and Hexway as both being functionally different builds, that are all capable meta compositions....
anyway I've ran out of the energy to repeat myself any longer, and i'm moving on to other comments.

And again, you are just jumping around dreamland somehow fantasizing about GW1 and missing the mark about GW2 by changing the goal posts.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Elementalist#wvw

https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Special:PrefixIndex/Build:E/

Very similar counts. Remember that GW2 build page has quite a few of those with variations as well for change in the situation where as GW1 typically just links an entire new build (Ala the various obs flesh farms). But you are right, this isn't about builds you magically shifted your comparison of individuals (which you stated was the original point of diversity) into actual composition goals when I said there were multiple builds firebrand/scourge played. Great news, there are multiple ways mid sized zergs fight as well with various builds too!

Aggressive bubble play.Melee Scourge play.Heavy Weaver play.Condition overload Scourge play.Ranged Well spike play.Cloud play.Heavy Revenant spike play.Bunker style to provide diversion for another tag.

And those are just builds that follow your set of rules.

Instead you point to a bunch of firebrands and scourges and say 'no diversity' and then say I'm wrong when I point to a bunch of monks and mesmers and say 'no diversity'. Like changing from Mo/Me to Mo/W is somehow a great stride to diversity but changing my scourge from curses to SR is homogeneity.

"You mention that the rules themselves are simple and generalizations...but the truth is that these are the rules we as autonomous agents EXACTLY follow, no matter how much autonomy we have. The END GOAL is to kill the other zerg, to survive the fight and to stay close to the center of your own zerg.

This right here seems to be your hang up. There are a dozen different sets of rules that abound in WvW. It varies from server to server. It varies from commander to commander. I'll happily make a case that there ARE rules, but those are not it. Not even close. IF those are your rules, your build selection becomes fairly reasonably shrunk. You open up the fact that some people WANT to kamikaze, or be a nuisance, or just PPT around the map, and that list grows a lot.

What you are getting at (I think, you a plaintively bad at explaining yourself and are not providing any clear examples of what you are asking for would look like in GW2) is how the GvG meta ultimately boiled down to 'kill enemy guild Lord before yours dies' and whilst Melee pressure + AP spike was frequently the go to there were build variations within that (dervish pressure vs warrior pressure vs ele pressure, etc etc) along with other compositions that were either cheesy (RtL Spike, Touch spam) or changed the form of pressure and spike (hexway, spiritway).

You SEEM to be asking 'Gw2 should be looking to make it so scourges can be replaced by any class as the ranged spike damage dealer in a typical pirateship well spike comp' and don't seem satisfied that the scourges have build diversity in how they do that, you want Anet to pursue making warriors be able to do that as well. Never mind that scourges being the go to for that is an issue of balance, they do that thing better than everyone else, and not one of diversity since plenty of other classes have a ranged spike DoT AoE (or multiple).

Sovereign.1093 · November 10, 2019

one issue too that i observe. not many actually know what they're supposed to do. so they may try x build, but don't know how to bring the best out of it. and even those running the meta builds, not knowing when where to do stuff, causes people to say that one build or set up op. :/

the factor of mis statistics is at play

JusticeRetroHunter.7684 · November 10, 2019

@God.2708 said:
This right here seems to be your hang up. There are a dozen different sets of rules that abound in WvW. It varies from server to server. It varies from commander to commander. I'll happily make a case that there ARE rules, but those are not it. Not even close. IF those are your rules, your build selection becomes fairly reasonably shrunk. You open up the fact that some people WANT to kamikaze, or be a nuisance, or just PPT around the map, and that list grows a lot.

I was specifically talking about Zerg play when it came to those rules. The rules due indeed change and are different. The rules are defined by the goals set by the autonomous agents. The autonomous agents are just players, and the goals are what we wish to accomplish in a very fundamental sense.

A scout in WvW has a different set of rules, and thus has different goals. A build that facilitates these goals would be akin to a stealth thief for example. How good is a scout build depends on the diversity available to the game. As of the current game right now, stealth thieves and mesmers make the best scouts because those builds align with their goals. Anyone can scout, but their build is what is in question here. What options does an elementalist have as a scout verses a thief for example. What does each one offer as a scout that the other does not. This is the real topic up for discussion here...

You SEEM to be asking 'Gw2 should be looking to make it so scourges can be replaced by any class as the ranged spike damage dealer in a typical pirateship well spike comp' and don't seem satisfied that the scourges have build diversity in how they do that, you want Anet to pursue making warriors be able to do that as well. Never mind that scourges being the go to for that is an issue of balance, they do that thing better than everyone else, and not one of diversity since plenty of other classes have a ranged spike DoT AoE (or multiple).

This is a distortion of the argument here. The idea is not to have player of Class A able to replace player of Class B. It is that a player Of Class A and Class B should both offer unique positions when working in a coordinated fashion, and that replacing Class A with Class B means you lose the unique properties that Class A brought to the table in exchange for the unique properties of Class B, both equally capable of achieving the same goal.

What you just proposed is homogeneity...where everyone can be easily replaced by something else because they can do the same job and offer nothing different than the others. What I describe is heterogeneity, which is that nobody can be exactly replaced because everyone is unique.

This is the issue Gw2 faces right now...it’s why commanders “ask for Dps” because that’s all classes really boil down to right now...just DPS and nothing more than that.

JusticeRetroHunter.7684 · November 10, 2019

@ThomasC.1056 said:Hello...From balance to diversityAnother balance question was mentioned in some ESO update where they were talking about balance and class design. Roughly, the points were :
Each class should be able to do everything in its way, which covers both the class theme and the mechanics (AoE vs targeted, for example)

Hi,You left a great comment, but I’m on a phone right now and it’s hard to respond to everything you said.

What you said about ESO is pretty much on the nose.

Although personally I don’t think it should be limited to just the classes but to individuals on an individual level...where every player has the potential to be vastly different than another but still capable of doing something that is valuable in a cooperative setting.

Builds in general is a design philosophy based on this premise and it’s what separates it from games like WoW.

God.2708 · November 10, 2019

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
You SEEM to be asking 'Gw2 should be looking to make it so scourges can be replaced by any class as the ranged spike damage dealer in a typical pirateship well spike comp' and don't seem satisfied that the scourges have build diversity in how they do that, you want Anet to pursue making warriors be able to do that as well. Never mind that scourges being the go to for that is an issue of balance, they do that thing better than everyone else, and not one of diversity since plenty of other classes have a ranged spike DoT AoE (or multiple).

This is a distortion of the argument here. The idea is not to have player of Class A able to replace player of Class B. It is that a player Of Class A and Class B should both offer unique positions when working in a coordinated fashion, and that replacing Class A with Class B means you lose the unique properties that Class A brought to the table in exchange for the unique properties of Class B, both equally capable of achieving the same goal.

What you just proposed is homogeneity...where everyone can be easily replaced by something else because they can do the same job and offer nothing different than the others. What I describe is heterogeneity, which is that nobody can be exactly replaced because everyone is unique.

This is the issue Gw2 faces right now...it’s why commanders “ask for Dps” because that’s all classes really boil down to right now...just DPS and nothing more than that.

Then I would disagree with you understanding how GW2 compositions work.

Scourges bring AoE DPS + CorruptionSoulbeasts bring AoE DPS + Pick potentialElementalists bring AoE DPS + Better AoE DPSSpellbreakers bring Melee AoE DPS + Melee boon stripsGuardians bring AoE DPS + protective boonsRevenants bring AoE DPS + damage reduction/offensive boonsMirages bring AoE DPS + unique utilityScrappers bring AoE DPS + SuperspeedThieves bring Melee AoE DPS + ... memes

Those AoE DPS all have a fairly interesting variety amongst them too. To the point a properly compositioned 40 player zerg would favor having a weaver or two, a spellbreaker or 3, a soulbeast or two, a mirage or two, a power scrapper or two, and maybe a thief. It would likely lose to a group entirely made up of scourges for DPS, but it would favor much better in a variety of other situations and that ultimately speaks to an issue of BALANCE on the scourges part, not diversity on the games part. (AKA the unique things the scourge brings are to strong, and it does them to well, not that other classes lack unique tools they bring to the table)

JusticeRetroHunter.7684 · November 10, 2019

@God.2708 said:
@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
You SEEM to be asking 'Gw2 should be looking to make it so scourges can be replaced by any class as the ranged spike damage dealer in a typical pirateship well spike comp' and don't seem satisfied that the scourges have build diversity in how they do that, you want Anet to pursue making warriors be able to do that as well. Never mind that scourges being the go to for that is an issue of balance, they do that thing better than everyone else, and not one of diversity since plenty of other classes have a ranged spike DoT AoE (or multiple).

This is a distortion of the argument here. The idea is not to have player of Class A able to replace player of Class B. It is that a player Of Class A and Class B should both offer unique positions when working in a coordinated fashion, and that replacing Class A with Class B means you lose the unique properties that Class A brought to the table in exchange for the unique properties of Class B, both equally capable of achieving the same goal.

What you just proposed is homogeneity...where everyone can be easily replaced by something else because they can do the same job and offer nothing different than the others. What I describe is heterogeneity, which is that nobody can be exactly replaced because everyone is unique.

This is the issue Gw2 faces right now...it’s why commanders “ask for Dps” because that’s all classes really boil down to right now...just DPS and nothing more than that.

Then I would disagree with you understanding how GW2 compositions work.

Scourges bring AoE DPS + CorruptionSoulbeasts bring AoE DPS + Pick potentialElementalists bring AoE DPS + Better AoE DPSSpellbreakers bring Melee AoE DPS + Melee boon stripsGuardians bring AoE DPS + protective boonsRevenants bring AoE DPS + damage reduction/offensive boonsMirages bring AoE DPS + unique utilityScrappers bring AoE DPS + SuperspeedThieves bring Melee AoE DPS + ... memes

Those AoE DPS all have a fairly interesting variety amongst them too. To the point a properly compositioned 40 player zerg would favor having a weaver or two, a spellbreaker or 3, a soulbeast or two, a mirage or two, a power scrapper or two, and maybe a thief. It would likely lose to a group entirely made up of scourges for DPS, but it would favor much better in a variety of other situations and that ultimately speaks to an issue of BALANCE on the scourges part, not diversity on the games part. (AKA the unique things the scourge brings are to strong, and it does them to well, not that other classes lack unique tools they bring to the table)

At this point your being argumentative just to make an argument. You put thieves as bring AOE DPS and memes. You should have said they bring group stealth instead....or at least they usto.

Your reaching pretty hard to find differences in the classes in large scale that make them useful not that those differences don’t exist...they do.

But as an example, just think of the difference between thief AOE stealth and engi...a classic example of when a class takes the mechanics of another class for the sake of balance...what do you know engis are now the ones that grant party stealth instead of thieves. Do you really believe that this current meta is diverse when design decisions like that are implemented? On a regularly scheduled basis?

God.2708 · November 10, 2019

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
@God.2708 said:
@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
You SEEM to be asking 'Gw2 should be looking to make it so scourges can be replaced by any class as the ranged spike damage dealer in a typical pirateship well spike comp' and don't seem satisfied that the scourges have build diversity in how they do that, you want Anet to pursue making warriors be able to do that as well. Never mind that scourges being the go to for that is an issue of balance, they do that thing better than everyone else, and not one of diversity since plenty of other classes have a ranged spike DoT AoE (or multiple).