PvP Podcast feat. CMC!

[Sneakers.8462]

In case anyone missed it, we recently had CMC on the Arenalabs PvP Podcast to talk about lots of different issues and topics regarding PvP. CMC also answered some of the questions you folks from the community were asking.

The podcast can be found on Spotify and Podbean

It will be uploaded on our YouTube channel soon!

I hope you enjoy this episode as it was fun to get some developer insights of the game we love!

[KrHome.1920]

So he is aware of the balance communication issues and the balance patch release issues.

Now is this good, because he knows what's lacking or is it bad because nevertheless nothing happens?

[Lonecap.4105]

@KrHome.1920 said:So he is aware of the balance communication issues and the balance patch release issues.

Now is this good, because he knows what's lacking or is it bad because nevertheless nothing happens?

He basically barely has any time because of what we can assume is work on the new elite specs, and any changes that do get released were assembled at the last possible moment.

[KrHome.1920]

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@"KrHome.1920" said:So he is aware of the balance communication issues and the balance patch release issues.

Now is this good, because he knows what's lacking or is it bad because nevertheless nothing happens?

He basically barely has any time because of what we can assume is work on the new elite specs, and any changes that do get released were assembled at the last possible moment.So in feb25 when they made that announcement they didn't know anything about releasing a new expac? (Because otherwise they should have known, that their goals would be unrealistic.)

Totally reasonable! /irony off

I am at about 1 hour and 25 mins now and while I agreed with pretty much everything he said up to now, here he made two weird statements.

• In the old days condi engi could never win against core necro due to mechanics and that was fine to him. A few sentences before he said everyone should analyse why he lost an encounter and have the chance to make adjustments to the build to be favored the next time. Switching the damage type is almost like switching the class. I don't think it should go that far. I remember these days. Encountering an engi on necro almost felt like cheating. That's not how it should be.
• "Playing ranked is not about winning, it's about improving." WHAT?

[ollbirtan.2915]

Yeah, suggest he himself tries 'improving' by playing some of the classes he gutted randomly and without any 'trade off'.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@ollbirtan.2915 said:Yeah, suggest he himself tries 'improving' by playing some of the classes he gutted randomly and without any 'trade off'.

Haha this^ I'm sure cmc is destroying in conquest on his warrior.

[KrHome.1920]

At least he admitted mirage clock was a crappy design idea, as you can cover whatever you want with it (heal, burst, rez...).

They should have reworked it, just like they should have reworked scourge. That both didn't happen, but we got terrible "fixes" instead, says enough to me.

I mean he is aware of pretty much everything the community complains about. That's nice and he seems to be competent, but from that alone we don't gain anything. It's the outcome that matters.

[Jables.4659]

@"KrHome.1920" said:At least he admitted mirage clock was a crappy design idea, as you can cover whatever you want with it (heal, burst, rez...).

They should have reworked it, just like they should have reworked scourge. That both didn't happen, but we got terrible "fixes" instead, says enough to me.

I mean he is aware of pretty much everything the community complains about. That's nice and he seems to be competent, but from that alone we don't gain anything. It's the outcome that matters.

I agree that the "attack while defending" nature of MC is bad for the game, but I kind of chuckled to myself when he talked about Mesmer. He said that the one-dodge-mirage nerf was the right idea at the time and its still the right idea. He then goes on to say that Mesmer's kit doesn't have enough survivability to keep up with meta classes and something needs to be done about that. It seemed like he almost realized the obvious but didn't quite get there. Mirage wouldn't have a survivability issue if he hadn't taken a hatchet to its dodge bar. Chronomancer wouldn't have a survivability issue if they hadn't sent distortion to the shadow realm. Core Mesmer's issue isn't survivability, it just doesn't have enough mobility/damage/control to be worth taking over another profession. Mirage would probably find a place in the meta if they returned its second dodge bar, but I honestly think chrono may be beyond saving. When it was first released, the thing that made it good was that it worked as a replacement to the dueling traitline. The old phantasm system along with chronophantasma and pre-nerf illusionary reversion provided enough shatter food so that Deceptive Evasion could be sidelined, allowing you to take either inspiration or chaos along with chronomancer. I don't see chronomancer functioning well in this era without a complete redesign.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

CMC is a great person, i like him a lot and i think he genuinely cares about the game. My only hold up is that if they want diversity, They need to take a look into how diversity works in the real world. The position he is in, Nerfing things will not yield a more diverse game...neither will buffing unfortunately. The only way to achieve diversity is to look into complexity theory, and making changes that align with at least some of the underlying principles of complex systems. As an example, this is done, in general, by having things interact more profoundly with other things...or just basic synergistics.

Just as an example. If Skill A synergizes with Skill B, that is a single, linear interaction.in the same token, if Skill A synergizes with Skill B and also independently synergizes with Skill C, that is 2 interactions, again a linear interaction.

But if Skill A synergizes with Skill B, and Skill B synergizes with Skill C,D and E. this is an exponential, diverging interaction, where the number of interactions Skill A has with other skills is now 1^N. The relationship becomes more complex when Skill A effects Skill B, C and D, and when Skill B interacts with Skill A, C D and so on, where the number of relationships between these skills diverges from 1 to 1^N^N for each additional skill added into this web, ill Illustrate this here in this image -

So the more synergies exist between things, the more complex the interactions of agents, and the more diversity you will have. That's just one property of complex systems, and that's really all they need to do. All they really are doing or at least should be doing is replicate a complex system (ones that we see in reality) in a game...which isn't that difficult it's been done before and it actually happens regardless of what you do anyway (since we all exist in reality, all games that we play, so long as they have choices, will exhibit complex adaptive behavior in one form or another)

[Ovark.2514]

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:CMC is a great person, i like him a lot and i think he genuinely cares about the game. My only hold up is that if they want diversity, They need to take a look into how diversity works in the real world. The position he is in, Nerfing things will not yield a more diverse game...neither will buffing unfortunately. The only way to achieve diversity is to look into complexity theory, and making changes that align with at least some of the underlying principles of complex systems. As an example, this is done, in general, by having things interact more profoundly with other things...or just basic synergistic.

Just as an example. If Skill A synergizes with Skill B, that is a single, linear interaction.in the same token, if Skill A synergizes with Skill B and also independently synergizes with Skill C, that is 2 interactions, again a linear interaction.

But if Skill A synergizes with Skill B, and Skill B synergizes with Skill C,D and E. this is an exponential, diverging interaction, where the number of interactions Skill A has with other skills is now 1^N. The relationship becomes more complex when Skill A effects Skill B, C and D, and when Skill B interacts with Skill A, C D and so on, where the number of relationships between these skills diverges from 1 to 1^N^N for each additional skill added into this web.

So the more synergies exist between things, the more complex the interactions of agents, and the more diversity you will have. That's just one property of complex systems, and that's really all they need to do. All they really are doing or at least should be doing is replicate a complex system (ones that we see in reality) in a game...which isn't that difficult it's been done before and it actually happens regardless of what you do anyway (since we all exist in reality, all games that we play, so long as they have choices, will exhibit complex adaptive behavior in one form or another)

Imo It's as simple as: Certain skills are potentially quite useful in 10%-20% of situations. Other skills are potentially useful in 90%-100% of all situations when used intelligently. What limits build diversity is when the game has BOTH of these types of skills on each class. The devs need to decide which way they want it and go all the way. The example I always think about is Throw Bolas vs something like Balanced Stance. Throw Bolas is a potentially very useful skill because it immobilizes the foe at range. Except it can ONLY be used in very specific circumstances, like: When attacking, when not using another skill, when not blind, while facing your opponent, When fighting only one enemy, etc. These circumstances are very few realistically. Balanced Stance however can be used: When attacking or defending or running away, Can be used in any orientation, effectiveness scales with the amount of foes, Assists in retreating or advancing, Can be used while using other skills. The devs simply need to make up their mind on if they want a player's success or failure in a fight be dependent on the choices made before the fight (the build they chose) OR for any build to have a chance against any other build if the player is skilled.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@Ovark.2514 said:Imo It's as simple as: Certain skills are potentially quite useful in 10%-20% of situations. Other skills are potentially useful in 90%-100% of all situations

Usefulness is part of complexity theory. It's defined more rigidly there, where essentially, usefulness is a parameter that decides whether autonomous agents can achieve autonomous goals. For gw2, that usefulness parameter is in the abilities themselves, and how useful they are to you as a competitive autonomous agent and determine whether it is taken or not to achieve your autonomous goals. Abilities and traits that are more useful, will be taken more often, and that's just a consequence of complexity working in a competitive and adaptive environment.

But ya like i said, all that really needs to be done is understanding diversity in how it works in the real world, because it's not magic or pseudo science...It's real world applicable, and it's broad, in that lot of problems and solutions people describe in gw2 are also described (or refuted) by complexity theory.

[otto.5684]

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:So he is aware of the balance communication issues and the balance patch release issues.

Now is this good, because he knows what's lacking or is it bad because nevertheless nothing happens?

He basically barely has any time because of what we can assume is work on the new elite specs, and any changes that do get released were assembled at the last possible moment.

Honestly, this fucking bull shit. The Feb patch was largely not tested and incomplete. We have been in fix mode since. And now things slowed down to a turtle cuz they are “busy.” That is cute. If you cannot produce a complete product DO NOT MAKE MAJOR CHANGES. SPvP went from fun and semi unbalanced to fucking slug that seriously unbalanced. But Anet is “busy.”

@KrHome.1920 said:At least he admitted mirage clock was a crappy design idea, as you can cover whatever you want with it (heal, burst, rez...).

They should have reworked it, just like they should have reworked scourge. That both didn't happen, but we got terrible "fixes" instead, says enough to me.

I mean he is aware of pretty much everything the community complains about. That's nice and he seems to be competent, but from that alone we don't gain anything. It's the outcome that matters.

If only this was true... cuz guess what? It is not. mirage was pushed out of the meta way before the Feb patch. The last vestige of functionality it had was chaotic interruption. It was rightfully nerfed, but that was it. See, the statement CMC made may have been correct in 2017, maybe in early 2018, but now it is either ignorance or bias.

And let’s see the time line here. CMC wants to make a massive change to how ambushes work, but does not know how. Has no understanding of where the class was standing balance wise. Makes a change by his own admission does not work and broke the class. And 9 month later he is too busy to fix it. And this is a bit contradictory, but yes ambushes (and many other things) tend to be over loaded. But you cannot continuously nerf gun the class, then further reduce functionality and expect the class to still function competitively. What needed to happen was reduction in functionality. If they removed the ability to dodge while CCed that would have been all what is needed.

And this is not an isolated instance. From 2019 forward, I can point out dozens of things that functioned well, or at least at an acceptable level, that got completely demolished, with no regard to design or balance, based on a grandiose idea of how the game could work. Idea that roughly in 2-3 different polls in sPvP forums (one with close to 300 votes) had ~60% disapproval.

[XECOR.2814]

Where are the links?

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

@KrHome.1920 said:

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:So he is aware of the balance communication issues and the balance patch release issues.

Now is this good, because he knows what's lacking or is it bad because nevertheless nothing happens?

So in feb25 when they made that announcement they didn't know anything about releasing a new expac? (Because otherwise they should have known, that their goals would be unrealistic.)

I kind of got the impression that the xpac was a very sudden decision after the initial disappointment of LW season 5. It was announced in mid march so I wouldnt be surprised if they didnt know about it in February.

[Arheundel.6451]

CMC has been convinced that mesmer has sustain problems like wtf just happened?

Yes there is Thief stolen item ECTO and what after that? What this man consider as "meaningful sustain"? A class with inbuilt reflect on evades, several forms of disengage with stealth and teleports away from enemy on a 8s CD , teleport stunbreak away from enemy, convoluted Iframe chain to grant "nominal" invulnerability from anything but effective unblockable attacks like steal...and this chain is on a relatively speaking low CD...mesmer needs no stats investment to gain all this.

Let's not even open the book with condi mesmer trailblazer in WvW....Dear Lord....how can anybody sensible say that this class lacks sustain? CMC and these guys in the podcast must have played a different game when Chronobunker was running rampant.

People cry on rangers and thieves or guardians or holosmiths......did you all forget about condi mirage? PB burst ? Chronobunker? Let's not change the narrative when it's convenient , mesmer received nerfs for a very good reason and the one dodge was certainly too much...but nerfs to condi mirage were certainly warranted .

"Mesmer lacks sustain...."...Yeah didn't have to hear about that...good Lord

[Arheundel.6451]

@Jables.4659 said:

@"KrHome.1920" said:At least he admitted mirage clock was a crappy design idea, as you can cover whatever you want with it (heal, burst, rez...).

They should have reworked it, just like they should have reworked scourge. That both didn't happen, but we got terrible "fixes" instead, says enough to me.

I mean he is aware of pretty much everything the community complains about. That's nice and he seems to be competent, but from that alone we don't gain anything. It's the outcome that matters.

I agree that the "attack while defending" nature of MC is bad for the game, but I kind of chuckled to myself when he talked about Mesmer. He said that the one-dodge-mirage nerf was the right idea at the time and its still the right idea. He then goes on to say that Mesmer's kit doesn't have enough survivability to keep up with meta classes and something needs to be done about that. It seemed like he almost realized the obvious but didn't quite get there. Mirage wouldn't have a survivability issue if he hadn't taken a hatchet to its dodge bar. Chronomancer wouldn't have a survivability issue if they hadn't sent distortion to the shadow realm. Core Mesmer's issue isn't survivability, it just doesn't have enough mobility/damage/control to be worth taking over another profession. Mirage would probably find a place in the meta if they returned its second dodge bar, but I honestly think chrono may be beyond saving. When it was first released, the thing that made it good was that it worked as a replacement to the dueling traitline. The old phantasm system along with chronophantasma and pre-nerf illusionary reversion provided enough shatter food so that Deceptive Evasion could be sidelined, allowing you to take either inspiration or chaos along with chronomancer. I don't see chronomancer functioning well in this era without a complete redesign.

Mesmer lacks sustain?.

Blur into stealth into burst into Distortion into stealth into Teleport away into stealth into dodge reflect into etc etc...is considered not enough sustain compared to who? A mender bunker?

Yeah as I suspected ages ago....this game balance isn't getting any better....in truth it will only get worst

[Leonidrex.5649]

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Jables.4659 said:

@"KrHome.1920" said:At least he admitted mirage clock was a crappy design idea, as you can cover whatever you want with it (heal, burst, rez...).

They should have reworked it, just like they should have reworked scourge. That both didn't happen, but we got terrible "fixes" instead, says enough to me.

I mean he is aware of pretty much everything the community complains about. That's nice and he seems to be competent, but from that alone we don't gain anything. It's the outcome that matters.

I agree that the "attack while defending" nature of MC is bad for the game, but I kind of chuckled to myself when he talked about Mesmer. He said that the one-dodge-mirage nerf was the right idea at the time and its still the right idea. He then goes on to say that Mesmer's kit doesn't have enough survivability to keep up with meta classes and something needs to be done about that. It seemed like he almost realized the obvious but didn't quite get there. Mirage wouldn't have a survivability issue if he hadn't taken a hatchet to its dodge bar. Chronomancer wouldn't have a survivability issue if they hadn't sent distortion to the shadow realm. Core Mesmer's issue isn't survivability, it just doesn't have enough mobility/damage/control to be worth taking over another profession. Mirage would probably find a place in the meta if they returned its second dodge bar, but I honestly think chrono may be beyond saving. When it was first released, the thing that made it good was that it worked as a replacement to the dueling traitline. The old phantasm system along with chronophantasma and pre-nerf illusionary reversion provided enough shatter food so that Deceptive Evasion could be sidelined, allowing you to take either inspiration or chaos along with chronomancer. I don't see chronomancer functioning well in this era without a complete redesign.

Mesmer lacks sustain?.

Blur into stealth into burst into Distortion into stealth into Teleport away into stealth into

dodge reflect

into etc etc...is considered not enough sustain compared to who? A mender bunker?

Yeah as I suspected ages ago....this game balance isn't getting any better....in truth it will only get worst

compared to what is played right now? in the end mesmer will be huffing and puffing and reaper will last longer just by sheer ammounts of HP, on holo I can easy peasy lemon squeezy get 4x to 5x the healing I get from mesmer. oh and dodging and blocking aint mesmer only thing, others get to block get to dodge get to invuln and get to stealth too on top of crazy healing and more raw hp and damage.I mean sure you can grab staff and count spamming 2 to port as "crazy sustain" but you are dead weight on staff since it has no pressure, similar with stealth.mesmer has limited ways of dealing damage. when you stealth often times you wont even get to apply any damage from it since you know, hurr durr 20s+ cd on anything that can deal more then 4k dmg.

[Jables.4659]

@Arheundel.6451 said:

Mesmer lacks sustain?.

Blur into stealth into burst into Distortion into stealth into Teleport away into stealth into dodge reflect into etc etc...is considered not enough sustain compared to who? A mender bunker?

Yes, Both especs lack sustain compared to the current meta lineup. Stealth is far less powerful than years past due to the prevalence of reveal. In spvp, all you're going to be using it for is disengaging and engaging in fights (which is not sustain). Its far more useful in WvW, but the game mode is stacked with marked territory and literal marking throwable items that people do use in combat. Regardless, stealth is available in a reasonable way to thief, mesmer, ranger, engineer, and guardian. Mesmer and chronomancers mobility is relegated to blink and sword 3. I'm not even going to accept phase retreat on staff as the weapon hasn't been worth using since Anet destroyed the sword/sword staff power mirage build (It deserved nerfs, but it didn't deserve to be obliterated). Many necromancer builds have more mobility than core mesmer and chronomancer. The dodge reflect trait was already severely nerfed. its still useful, but nothing special compared to defensive traits on other classes.

[Starbreaker.6507]

@ollbirtan.2915 said:Yeah, suggest he himself tries 'improving' by playing some of the classes he gutted randomly and without any 'trade off'.

So that means he doesn't play Rev then since it's picked by the top players and they tend to win?

Hehehehe...

[Terrorhuz.4695]

The absolute state of this game can be easily understood by this comment section, and the crowds of people cheering for CmC. I have no words left, and if I had them they would all be slurs.

[Chaith.8256]

@"KrHome.1920" said:I am at about 1 hour and 25 mins now and while I agreed with pretty much everything he said up to now, here he made two weird statements.

• In the old days condi engi could never win against core necro due to mechanics and that was fine to him. A few sentences before he said everyone should analyse why he lost an encounter and have the chance to make adjustments to the build to be favored the next time. Switching the damage type is almost like switching the class. I don't think it should go that far. I remember these days. Encountering an engi on necro almost felt like cheating. That's not how it should be.
• "Playing ranked is not about winning, it's about improving." WHAT?

A player is not entitled to a fair 1v1 vs. everything, if you go full condi w/ little condi removal and they go full condi damage and full condi transferring, needless to say there have been many other hard counter relationships before and after Condi Engi vs. Condi Necro

Conquest is not a 1v1 simulator, so he's correct that there are many ways to analyse and improve upon a lost encounter involving an enemy Necro if you were a core condi Engi. The majority of the time, improving would simply be learning to force match-ups not involving the Necro, and learning to drag the Necro out of position, ie: run away properly, and clobber him with teammates if he runs out of transfers. Even in Vanilla, when Toss Elixir X was added you could Moa condi burst a Necro and prevent transfers, so for a year in 2015 you could do something about it, just a lil easter egg trivia.

What CMC is saying is that a hard Rock Paper Scissors is relationship is sometimes okay. What he's not spelling out is this: Rock paper scissors is OK as long as the person that can be easily crushed can also provide value (crush others, put up big numbers/utility?) and remain viable despite this. A class that gets dumpstered by most things and remains in the dumpster is not doable of course. What he's also not spelling out is that on a team you can have 5 of any potential rock, paper, scissors, so even if every single engagement was rock, paper, scissors, all over the map, the wins and losses are spread out and hedged.

[Bazsi.2734]

So basicly he's pretty much the guy responsible for balance, but he has to work on higher priority projects 99% of the time. I'd say PvP will die if this is the amount of investment it gets, but one could argue it already did.

[c u again.3267]

tldr: he told us anet doesn't care.that's all you need to know.

[Chaith.8256]

@Bazsi.2734 said:So basicly he's pretty much the guy responsible for balance, but he has to work on higher priority projects 99% of the time. I'd say PvP will die if this is the amount of investment it gets, but one could argue it already did.

He's a competitive designer, and he's the only developer who remotely understands pvp balance, and has played in that world. The balance guys seem to listen to his suggestions on PVP but CMC doesn't control the patch schedule and other large balance releases. Probs cut him some slack

[Supreme.3164]

@Chaith.8256 said:A player is not entitled to a fair 1v1 vs. everything. Conquest is not a 1v1 simulator, so he's correct that there are many ways to analyse and improve upon a lost encounter

Well said