This is jackhammering, not balancing

[Salt Mode.3780]

@mistsim.2748 said:Game was horrible before Feb patch. My friends and I left the game because the power creep was completely out of control. We were all Plat players. Game was garbage then. Less garbage now.

Yea no im pretty sure there are less players now and more bots I dont know why you still think the February patch as a good thing.

[Axl.8924]

@Ghos.1326 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

@"ellesee.8297" said:this is pretty dumb.

"condi engi is good but you have to outplay the person really really hard."

...then it's not good lmao. let's say condi engi is a 4/10 build, and i'm being generous. let's say it's being played by a 10/10 player fighting a 7/10 player playing spellbreaker, probably a 6-7/10 build. sure the 10/10 condi engi player may win, but it's still a 4/10 build aka it belongs in the bin.

"you win the war of attrition with prybar and blowtorch"

what meta side noder do you think you could beat with prybar and blowtorch if you couldn't just massively outplay him? Spellbreaker? Mending has about the same cooldown as prybar and blowtorch. and they have shake it off. what's your setup? Flamethrower + toolkit + S/Egun? One stunbreak and gear shield to defend against a spellbreaker offensive. Good memes. Spellbreaker is probably one of the worse side noders in the current metagame too. What chance is there against something like a prot holo?

also

"FT scrapper is as or more complex of a build than nade holo".

ok my guy. you win. how can i rebut something as flawlessly sound as that?

Can i ask you something? what kinda sustain do you bring on condi builds? I don't know much about engi or anything at all.

I can answer this. With Engi in particular (Core Engineer), a few factors: the combination of both Alchemy + Inventions, Shield, the choice of traits within those trait lines, amulet used, and some more. Alch + Inventions together is a phenomenal defensive trait line combination (mostly because of Alchemy which is stupid op). Inventions really compliments Alchemy very well but is horrible by itself, while alchemy can be played by itself and still be more defensive than Inventions, but regardless together they are very strong. Shield with the over shield trait in inventions is also very good, especially in tandum with anti-corrosion plating to help mitigate and minimalize conditions placed onto you, while also providing defense by granting protection (although unless you use the secondary shield skill really only provides you with 1s of protection lel). As well, in inventions the passive trait that grants you prot when you heal, experimental turrets that grants you prot when you use thumper turret, and the very popular alchemy trait protection injection which grants you prot when you're CC'd, and that only scratches the surface because it also expands with purity of purpose and Elixir C.

The offset to this all, is that most of your defensive utilities are on higher cooldown times, meaning you'll have to make good utilization of positioning to mitigate damage dealt to you overall. then there's the fact that as core you still have access to your elite toolbelt, which one in particular really helps defensively overall: med pack drop from the elite crate skill.

just as a quick edit here as well, you'll notice a trend with being so defensive: you have to focus your trait choices primarily on defensive things (which is healthy) in contrast to many of the meta builds out there that do not require you to focus primarily on defensive traits, allowing you to hit heavy while being able to sustain exceptionally well (unhealthy for the game), instead of those specific trait choices for those specific builds granting smaller increments of defense/offense to balance out and determine whether or not you do more damage than sustain, more sustain than offense, or both but lower on both ends to reflect the balance between having the best of multiple worlds and making a single specific role your primary focus path.

It sounds very much bunkery.

Is that like a side noder roamer whatever? It sounds as if It would make good at capturing points. Maybe not as good as holo but sounds like it could be at least efficient.

[Asum.4960]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"Kuma.1503" said:This would require somewhat equalize the power between traits. Grandmasters and Masters would best be done away with in this system, or most would just default to running 2+ grandmasters. Mirage, for example would run IH and EM. Dps Ele would run Lightning Rod and Fresh Air, ect. Personally I wouldn' t mind if every trait was on the level of a Grandmaster, since these tend to be the most interesting, and most gameplay defining. It would definately cause even more chaos, but it would also be a theorycrafter's dream.

Personally, ya this is what I would like to see also. All traits should abandon anything trivial and easy to figure out mechanics like "deal +10% damage" and instead all the traits should just be unique mechanics that allow you to do something new or different, and have some interesting set of relationships with other traits or skills...and then you just pick 3 our of 9 of them for every specialization.

One can even make this kind of system "bigger", by adding additional scale invariant layers to those kinds of systems. Like artificial investment systems for example, investing points into traits to make them stronger, would exponentially increase the possibility space.

As an example, if you had 20 of these "points" to spend to make traits stronger, where each trait has say, 5 tiers, then you are essentially multiplying the possibilities by I think 5 fold? for 405 possible combinations on a specialization instead of 81? it could perhaps be 85^5 (a total of 4437053125 possible combinations O.o) I'm not sure...I don't know the exact number but adding another layer to the trait system would just increases the complexity by so much and it would be a theorycrafters dream for sure.

Yep, I always hoped they would rework the Trait system a second time. I for one want them to keep Grandmasters/Capstones as a concept, but where each Trait line has a limited choice of really class/core mechanic defining features as GM's that affect both gameplay and visuals (something like Writ of Persistence, something that immediately tells you it's an Honor Guard and what Trait they run - splashing changes to so many weapons, Traits etc. by altering a profession core mechanic, or most notably how Daredevil Dodges define the Daredevil line), rather than boring 10% damage modifiers, 20% Cooldown reductions and such.

For the rest, imo Traits would be better and more interesting if you got rid of minors as concept, tried to create more parity between the current Minor, Adept, Master and many current "Grandmaster" Traits and then made them be freely selectable within their lines - so each line could be 3-4 choices of Traits freely selectable from all the (~12) Traits associated with that line, offering more minor enhancements and synergies as most current Traits do, and then a choice of one of three Grandmasters that really define the line and alter a core mechanic of the professions, making Builds feel unique and immediately apparent through it's choices of GM's/Capstones, with lot's of more minor customization under the hood still which can alter how those mechanical GM changes express themselves.

Currently there are just so many uninteresting and dead Traits that solely exist in their illusion of choice of "have to pick one of three, might as well this".

In any case, I want to thank you for your stimulating posts as I know the effort that can go into writing that stuff out and I enjoyed the read.

[ellesee.8297]

@Axl.8924 said:

It sounds very much bunkery.

Is that like a side noder roamer whatever? It sounds as if It would make good at capturing points. Maybe not as good as holo but sounds like it could be at least efficient.

It is not.

[Ghos.1326]

@Axl.8924 said:

@Ghos.1326 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

@"ellesee.8297" said:this is pretty dumb.

"condi engi is good but you have to outplay the person really really hard."

...then it's not good lmao. let's say condi engi is a 4/10 build, and i'm being generous. let's say it's being played by a 10/10 player fighting a 7/10 player playing spellbreaker, probably a 6-7/10 build. sure the 10/10 condi engi player may win, but it's still a 4/10 build aka it belongs in the bin.

"you win the war of attrition with prybar and blowtorch"

what meta side noder do you think you could beat with prybar and blowtorch if you couldn't just massively outplay him? Spellbreaker? Mending has about the same cooldown as prybar and blowtorch. and they have shake it off. what's your setup? Flamethrower + toolkit + S/Egun? One stunbreak and gear shield to defend against a spellbreaker offensive. Good memes. Spellbreaker is probably one of the worse side noders in the current metagame too. What chance is there against something like a prot holo?

also

"FT scrapper is as or more complex of a build than nade holo".

ok my guy. you win. how can i rebut something as flawlessly sound as that?

Can i ask you something? what kinda sustain do you bring on condi builds? I don't know much about engi or anything at all.

I can answer this. With Engi in particular (Core Engineer), a few factors: the combination of both Alchemy + Inventions, Shield, the choice of traits within those trait lines, amulet used, and some more. Alch + Inventions together is a phenomenal defensive trait line combination (mostly because of Alchemy which is stupid op). Inventions really compliments Alchemy very well but is horrible by itself, while alchemy can be played by itself and still be more defensive than Inventions, but regardless together they are very strong. Shield with the over shield trait in inventions is also very good, especially in tandum with anti-corrosion plating to help mitigate and minimalize conditions placed onto you, while also providing defense by granting protection (although unless you use the secondary shield skill really only provides you with 1s of protection lel). As well, in inventions the passive trait that grants you prot when you heal, experimental turrets that grants you prot when you use thumper turret, and the very popular alchemy trait protection injection which grants you prot when you're CC'd, and that only scratches the surface because it also expands with purity of purpose and Elixir C.

The offset to this all, is that most of your defensive utilities are on higher cooldown times, meaning you'll have to make good utilization of positioning to mitigate damage dealt to you overall. then there's the fact that as core you still have access to your elite toolbelt, which one in particular really helps defensively overall: med pack drop from the elite crate skill.

just as a quick edit here as well, you'll notice a trend with being so defensive: you have to focus your trait choices primarily on defensive things (which is healthy) in contrast to many of the meta builds out there that do not require you to focus primarily on defensive traits, allowing you to hit heavy while being able to sustain exceptionally well (unhealthy for the game), instead of those specific trait choices for those specific builds granting smaller increments of defense/offense to balance out and determine whether or not you do more damage than sustain, more sustain than offense, or both but lower on both ends to reflect the balance between having the best of multiple worlds and making a single specific role your primary focus path.

It sounds very much bunkery.

Is that like a side noder roamer whatever? It sounds as if It would make good at capturing points. Maybe not as good as holo but sounds like it could be at least efficient.

With Inventions + Alchemy combination, it would fit more into the side node/bunker role.

[Axl.8924]

@Ghos.1326 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

@Ghos.1326 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

@"ellesee.8297" said:this is pretty dumb.

"condi engi is good but you have to outplay the person really really hard."

...then it's not good lmao. let's say condi engi is a 4/10 build, and i'm being generous. let's say it's being played by a 10/10 player fighting a 7/10 player playing spellbreaker, probably a 6-7/10 build. sure the 10/10 condi engi player may win, but it's still a 4/10 build aka it belongs in the bin.

"you win the war of attrition with prybar and blowtorch"

what meta side noder do you think you could beat with prybar and blowtorch if you couldn't just massively outplay him? Spellbreaker? Mending has about the same cooldown as prybar and blowtorch. and they have shake it off. what's your setup? Flamethrower + toolkit + S/Egun? One stunbreak and gear shield to defend against a spellbreaker offensive. Good memes. Spellbreaker is probably one of the worse side noders in the current metagame too. What chance is there against something like a prot holo?

also

"FT scrapper is as or more complex of a build than nade holo".

ok my guy. you win. how can i rebut something as flawlessly sound as that?

Can i ask you something? what kinda sustain do you bring on condi builds? I don't know much about engi or anything at all.

I can answer this. With Engi in particular (Core Engineer), a few factors: the combination of both Alchemy + Inventions, Shield, the choice of traits within those trait lines, amulet used, and some more. Alch + Inventions together is a phenomenal defensive trait line combination (mostly because of Alchemy which is stupid op). Inventions really compliments Alchemy very well but is horrible by itself, while alchemy can be played by itself and still be more defensive than Inventions, but regardless together they are very strong. Shield with the over shield trait in inventions is also very good, especially in tandum with anti-corrosion plating to help mitigate and minimalize conditions placed onto you, while also providing defense by granting protection (although unless you use the secondary shield skill really only provides you with 1s of protection lel). As well, in inventions the passive trait that grants you prot when you heal, experimental turrets that grants you prot when you use thumper turret, and the very popular alchemy trait protection injection which grants you prot when you're CC'd, and that only scratches the surface because it also expands with purity of purpose and Elixir C.

The offset to this all, is that most of your defensive utilities are on higher cooldown times, meaning you'll have to make good utilization of positioning to mitigate damage dealt to you overall. then there's the fact that as core you still have access to your elite toolbelt, which one in particular really helps defensively overall: med pack drop from the elite crate skill.

just as a quick edit here as well, you'll notice a trend with being so defensive: you have to focus your trait choices primarily on defensive things (which is healthy) in contrast to many of the meta builds out there that do not require you to focus primarily on defensive traits, allowing you to hit heavy while being able to sustain exceptionally well (unhealthy for the game), instead of those specific trait choices for those specific builds granting smaller increments of defense/offense to balance out and determine whether or not you do more damage than sustain, more sustain than offense, or both but lower on both ends to reflect the balance between having the best of multiple worlds and making a single specific role your primary focus path.

It sounds very much bunkery.

Is that like a side noder roamer whatever? It sounds as if It would make good at capturing points. Maybe not as good as holo but sounds like it could be at least efficient.

With Inventions + Alchemy combination, it would fit more into the side node/bunker role.

It soudns like it could fit similar roles that rev does in some ways no? i have seen them with aoes with nades and stuff.

[Quadox.7834]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"Crozame.4098" said:Then, how to increase the complexity in the mechanics, in a feasible and efficient manner?You are strongly against removing amulets or nerfs or buffs, which will reduce the "complexity", that's fine, then how can we increase complexity? Say, if celestial amulet is too strong for some builds, then how we address it? Or simply ignore it?

This is a difficult and hard to answer question, the reason being it's hard to answer, is because there are so many issues that Guild Wars 2 has in it's inherent game design, that it's hard to really say where to start and where to end. In addition, diversity isn't an analysis of just 1 skill or element, it's really an analysis of all skills and elements in aggregate. So removing celestial amulet as an example, alters the diversity of the entire system of the game, where locally diversity might increase somewhere's, and locally somewhere else it decreases. But overall, because the possibility space decreases, the complexity decreases and therefor diversity will be less then what it was before across the whole system.

When looking at the analysis of the aggregate of the system's behavior, one needs to focus not on it's individual components, but how many of these components are actually interacting with each other.

In accordance with complexity, there's a number of commonalities that a system should exhibit if it wishes to have complex behavior. By looking at these commonalities, one can make changes to the game in accordance with them.

---

Scale Invariance

! Scale Invariant architecture is a hallmark of emergent complexity. Target Caps are a restrictions on scale invariance. It purposefully inhibits it from happening. One would assume that this is perfectly logical...Target caps help balance the game right? But what this actually does, is neuter the system, with a linear cap, the complexity it can take on. A skill that works in a 1v1 situation, will only work in a 1v1 situation. A skill that can work in a 5v5 situation will always work in a 5v5 AND a 1v1 situation.!! You can see how skills that have no target caps are essentially better then skills that do. A-net counteracts this by simply reducing the effectiveness of skills with higher target caps, and essentially what you get is the symbols nerf, the scourge shade nerfs, the meteor shower nerfs...Conversely you have anet wanting to make 1v1 skills better by instead of relieving them of their target cap, by just simply increasing the damage or effectiveness that the skill does. This is how you get Deadeye Rifle Auto's and PP Unload's that hit for 6k+ damage...so that these 1v1 skills can be more effective in team fights.!! You can see how this back and forth tug of war between AOE damage and Single target damage is a problem that anet struggles to wrestle with, and A-net has addressed everything but the core issue of it which is that target caps should not exist at all, so that all skills can scale invariantly with the growth of the system. As the system grows, so does the value of the skills you use...therefor no particular skill is less useful in any tier of gameplay, whether that be a 1v1, a 5v5, GvG or a ZvZ.!

---

Feedback Loops and Scale Invariant Trade-offs

! You're wondering what would happen in the event that skills were to be relieved of target caps. It would be insanity, and rightly so. Skills have been designed from the inception of the game, to have no trade-offs. This also seemed like an intuitively good idea at the time...but it was yet again another design failure in seeing the bigger picture.!! Imagine if target caps were removed from all abilities, and every ability in essence could be utilized effectively in a zerg v zerg fight. Weapon attacks like Thief Dagger Auto's would hit 80 players at a time, inflicting thousands of conditions per minute, and dealing hilarious damage with 80 other players doing the same thing. It would be utter chaos...But this chaos is due to an inherent problem in skill design, which is the lack of scale invariant trade offs...Trade-off's that scale just as the value of those skills do as the growth of the system increases. If one were to draw a Risk vs Reward graph, where the X axis grows with the number of players in the system, the graph would look like linear, where the more player that exist in the system one is playing in, the riskier it is to use your abilities, and of course the more value you receive from using these skills since they are hitting 80 players.!

! A scale Invariant trade-off is therefor a design of feedback loops on skills and abilities. For every thing you do, there should be an equal and opposing trade off that grounds you from abusing that skill as the system grows in scale.

---

Possibility Space

! Probably the most important part, that the first two things are sub categories of, is the possibility space...the space in which things can explore all the different possibilities. This possibility space is essentially a fancy way of saying freedom of choice. The less limits and the less restrictions you have, the larger the possibility space will become, and in science the space is known more as "degrees of freedom." The more degrees of freedom there are in a space, the more possibilities there are to explore before entropy death. Anything that can be perceived as a limitation of this freedom, essentially diminishes the complexity.!! Cooldowns are a limitation! Mana and energy management are limitations! Number of Skills available to you at any given time is a limitation! Linear trait selection is a limitation.! Target Cap is a limitation!! Now some of these aren't bad. Mana and energy management are engaging features. But none the less they ARE a limitation...and their removal will in fact alleviate complexity limitation on the game...you can say what you will about that, but it is just a fact, that these things are placed into the game to sometimes add nuance...but that nuance is not necessarily a healthy addition to complexity.!! Naturally, a lot of the limitations above, have their own natural limits. Cooldowns are only as fast as one can mash the button on them, and number of skills available for you to use is only as useful as the limit to which you can actually press them to be used.!! Linear Trait selection is a special kind of limitation, where traits are organized in such-a-way, where there are only a total of 27 possible combinations of choices per specialization, rather then a non-linear trait selection which would grant you a total of 81 possible combination of choices per specialization. These limitations exist also in less obvious forms, such as amulets and runes that have only specific stat combinations. These specific stat combinations limit the number of possible choices by "softly persuading" you that because such stats don't align with a particular build, that said rune or stat combination won't directly benefit you.

---

Conclusion

Now you can tell how by looking at these commonalities, you can see how and why a game like Guild Wars 1 had a lot more build diversity and complexity then Guild Wars 2. Target caps didn't exist, skill selection was not linear (it was freeform) and many of the cooldowns in that game were less than 20 seconds, with durations that usually exceeded the cooldown time. The freeform nature of the game allowed the possibility space to be rather large, and so we were able to see very complex gameplay, with emergent and diverse qualities. As a result, the balance was never really that much of an issue for that game (with a few exceptions that were worth studying and identifying how those problems carried over, and were even built upon into Guild Wars 2.)

Aside from everything said so far, there are a lot more, less structurally dependent things, that come down to how individual skills work and how some mechanics are not complex enough. the lack of complexity in these mechanics lead to optimality calculations that on the scale of skills takes too short a period of time , and determining what optimal skill your class has available is also a problem that drives us faster to a homogenous game state. This is akin to looking at the Reaper class, and automatically bringing the Onslaught trait over any other choice...because the complexity of these traits aren't nearly complex enough where a simple evaluation make it too easy to tell which skill is going to give you the best results.

wrongcomment

[Arheundel.6451]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"Crozame.4098" said:Then, how to increase the complexity in the mechanics, in a feasible and efficient manner?You are strongly against removing amulets or nerfs or buffs, which will reduce the "complexity", that's fine, then how can we increase complexity? Say, if celestial amulet is too strong for some builds, then how we address it? Or simply ignore it?

This is a difficult and hard to answer question, the reason being it's hard to answer, is because there are so many issues that Guild Wars 2 has in it's inherent game design, that it's hard to really say where to start and where to end. In addition, diversity isn't an analysis of just 1 skill or element, it's really an analysis of all skills and elements in aggregate. So removing celestial amulet as an example, alters the diversity of the entire system of the game, where locally diversity might increase somewhere's, and locally somewhere else it decreases. But overall, because the possibility space decreases, the complexity decreases and therefor diversity will be less then what it was before across the whole system.

When looking at the analysis of the aggregate of the system's behavior, one needs to focus not on it's individual components, but how many of these components are actually interacting with each other.

In accordance with complexity, there's a number of commonalities that a system should exhibit if it wishes to have complex behavior. By looking at these commonalities, one can make changes to the game in accordance with them.

---

Scale Invariance

! Scale Invariant architecture is a hallmark of emergent complexity. Target Caps are a restrictions on scale invariance. It purposefully inhibits it from happening. One would assume that this is perfectly logical...Target caps help balance the game right? But what this actually does, is neuter the system, with a linear cap, the complexity it can take on. A skill that works in a 1v1 situation, will only work in a 1v1 situation. A skill that can work in a 5v5 situation will always work in a 5v5 AND a 1v1 situation.!! You can see how skills that have no target caps are essentially better then skills that do. A-net counteracts this by simply reducing the effectiveness of skills with higher target caps, and essentially what you get is the symbols nerf, the scourge shade nerfs, the meteor shower nerfs...Conversely you have anet wanting to make 1v1 skills better by instead of relieving them of their target cap, by just simply increasing the damage or effectiveness that the skill does. This is how you get Deadeye Rifle Auto's and PP Unload's that hit for 6k+ damage...so that these 1v1 skills can be more effective in team fights.!! You can see how this back and forth tug of war between AOE damage and Single target damage is a problem that anet struggles to wrestle with, and A-net has addressed everything but the core issue of it which is that target caps should not exist at all, so that all skills can scale invariantly with the growth of the system. As the system grows, so does the value of the skills you use...therefor no particular skill is less useful in any tier of gameplay, whether that be a 1v1, a 5v5, GvG or a ZvZ.!

---

Feedback Loops and Scale Invariant Trade-offs

! You're wondering what would happen in the event that skills were to be relieved of target caps. It would be insanity, and rightly so. Skills have been designed from the inception of the game, to have no trade-offs. This also seemed like an intuitively good idea at the time...but it was yet again another design failure in seeing the bigger picture.!! Imagine if target caps were removed from all abilities, and every ability in essence could be utilized effectively in a zerg v zerg fight. Weapon attacks like Thief Dagger Auto's would hit 80 players at a time, inflicting thousands of conditions per minute, and dealing hilarious damage with 80 other players doing the same thing. It would be utter chaos...But this chaos is due to an inherent problem in skill design, which is the lack of scale invariant trade offs...Trade-off's that scale just as the value of those skills do as the growth of the system increases. If one were to draw a Risk vs Reward graph, where the X axis grows with the number of players in the system, the graph would look like linear, where the more player that exist in the system one is playing in, the riskier it is to use your abilities, and of course the more value you receive from using these skills since they are hitting 80 players.!

! A scale Invariant trade-off is therefor a design of feedback loops on skills and abilities. For every thing you do, there should be an equal and opposing trade off that grounds you from abusing that skill as the system grows in scale.

---

Possibility Space

! Probably the most important part, that the first two things are sub categories of, is the possibility space...the space in which things can explore all the different possibilities. This possibility space is essentially a fancy way of saying freedom of choice. The less limits and the less restrictions you have, the larger the possibility space will become, and in science the space is known more as "degrees of freedom." The more degrees of freedom there are in a space, the more possibilities there are to explore before entropy death. Anything that can be perceived as a limitation of this freedom, essentially diminishes the complexity.!! Cooldowns are a limitation! Mana and energy management are limitations! Number of Skills available to you at any given time is a limitation! Linear trait selection is a limitation.! Target Cap is a limitation!! Now some of these aren't bad. Mana and energy management are engaging features. But none the less they ARE a limitation...and their removal will in fact alleviate complexity limitation on the game...you can say what you will about that, but it is just a fact, that these things are placed into the game to sometimes add nuance...but that nuance is not necessarily a healthy addition to complexity.!! Naturally, a lot of the limitations above, have their own natural limits. Cooldowns are only as fast as one can mash the button on them, and number of skills available for you to use is only as useful as the limit to which you can actually press them to be used.!! Linear Trait selection is a special kind of limitation, where traits are organized in such-a-way, where there are only a total of 27 possible combinations of choices per specialization, rather then a non-linear trait selection which would grant you a total of 81 possible combination of choices per specialization. These limitations exist also in less obvious forms, such as amulets and runes that have only specific stat combinations. These specific stat combinations limit the number of possible choices by "softly persuading" you that because such stats don't align with a particular build, that said rune or stat combination won't directly benefit you.

---

Conclusion

Now you can tell how by looking at these commonalities, you can see how and why a game like Guild Wars 1 had a lot more build diversity and complexity then Guild Wars 2. Target caps didn't exist, skill selection was not linear (it was freeform) and many of the cooldowns in that game were less than 20 seconds, with durations that usually exceeded the cooldown time. The freeform nature of the game allowed the possibility space to be rather large, and so we were able to see very complex gameplay, with emergent and diverse qualities. As a result, the balance was never really that much of an issue for that game (with a few exceptions that were worth studying and identifying how those problems carried over, and were even built upon into Guild Wars 2.)

Aside from everything said so far, there are a lot more, less structurally dependent things, that come down to how individual skills work and how some mechanics are not complex enough. the lack of complexity in these mechanics lead to optimality calculations that on the scale of skills takes too short a period of time , and determining what optimal skill your class has available is also a problem that drives us faster to a homogenous game state. This is akin to looking at the Reaper class, and automatically bringing the Onslaught trait over any other choice...because the complexity of these traits aren't nearly complex enough where a simple evaluation make it too easy to tell which skill is going to give you the best results.

GW1 had more build diversity because the game was balanced around the concept of effort=reward where the GW2 playerbase is all about effort<reward...as far as their one profession goes

[mistsim.2748]

@Salt Mode.3780 said:

@mistsim.2748 said:Game was horrible before Feb patch. My friends and I left the game because the power creep was completely out of control. We were all Plat players. Game was garbage then. Less garbage now.

Yea no im pretty sure there are less players now and more bots I dont know why you still think the February patch as a good thing.

That's because people are tired of the game mode. Conquest is trash that leads to boring, limited build variety regardless of how you balance the game. 8+ years of this.

If they don't entirely switch up the game mode for EoD, spvp will be dead dead.

[mistsim.2748]

@Arheundel.6451 said:.

GW1 had more build diversity because the game was balanced around the concept of effort=reward where the GW2 playerbase is all about effort<reward...as far as their one profession goes

And most importantly, it had fun game modes.

[witcher.3197]

@mistsim.2748 said:

@Salt Mode.3780 said:

@mistsim.2748 said:Game was horrible before Feb patch. My friends and I left the game because the power creep was completely out of control. We were all Plat players. Game was garbage then. Less garbage now.

Yea no im pretty sure there are less players now and more bots I dont know why you still think the February patch as a good thing.

That's because people are tired of the game mode. Conquest is trash that leads to boring, limited build variety regardless of how you balance the game. 8+ years of this.

If they don't entirely switch up the game mode for EoD, spvp will be dead dead.

And what's your alternative?

Because in 2v2 and 3v3 half the classes aren't even viable right now. There are many roles and niches in Conquest which create build diversity. You're deluding yourself if you think replacing Conquest will help build diversity.

[Arheundel.6451]

@mistsim.2748 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:.

GW1 had more build diversity because the game was balanced around the concept of effort=reward where the GW2 playerbase is all about effort<reward...

as far as their one profession goes

And most importantly, it had fun game modes.

Precisely....

[Arheundel.6451]

@witcher.3197 said:

@mistsim.2748 said:

@Salt Mode.3780 said:

@mistsim.2748 said:Game was horrible before Feb patch. My friends and I left the game because the power creep was completely out of control. We were all Plat players. Game was garbage then. Less garbage now.

Yea no im pretty sure there are less players now and more bots I dont know why you still think the February patch as a good thing.

That's because people are tired of the game mode. Conquest is trash that leads to boring, limited build variety regardless of how you balance the game. 8+ years of this.

If they don't entirely switch up the game mode for EoD, spvp will be dead dead.

And what's your alternative?

Because in 2v2 and 3v3 half the classes aren't even viable right now. There are many roles and niches in Conquest which create build diversity. You're deluding yourself if you think replacing Conquest will help build diversity.

Indeed...so you make open 10v10 as the official game mode, no capture point...just an open large map like AB in GW1, regardless of what "pro" say, a gamemode like that would be more balanced than what we have now where they just nerf sidenoders and support builds on rotation

[mistsim.2748]

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@witcher.3197 said:

@mistsim.2748 said:

@Salt Mode.3780 said:

@mistsim.2748 said:Game was horrible before Feb patch. My friends and I left the game because the power creep was completely out of control. We were all Plat players. Game was garbage then. Less garbage now.

Yea no im pretty sure there are less players now and more bots I dont know why you still think the February patch as a good thing.

That's because people are tired of the game mode. Conquest is trash that leads to boring, limited build variety regardless of how you balance the game. 8+ years of this.

If they don't entirely switch up the game mode for EoD, spvp will be dead dead.

And what's your alternative?

Because in 2v2 and 3v3 half the classes aren't even viable right now. There are many roles and niches in Conquest which create build diversity. You're deluding yourself if you think replacing Conquest will help build diversity.

Indeed...so you make open 10v10 as the official game mode, no capture point...just an open large map like AB in GW1, regardless of what "pro" say, a gamemode like that would be more balanced than what we have now where they just nerf sidenoders and support builds on rotation

Conquest is cancer.

10v10 or 15v15 would have a much more varied meta, and a ton of different roles would emerge (like it did at the height of 15v15 GvGs).

The best fights that remain in this game are small scale WvW fights.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@Shao.7236 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@Shao.7236 said:Meta = Lowest effort for highest reward. There is no such thing as high skill in anything that's meta. You'll never see condi engineer being meta without it being an absolute braindead build, period.

thats really not the case and you only have to look at past metas to see why

I've already did it and the fact people thought having Holosmith hitting for 4k per auto attack or being able to hit people for 3k of unblockable damage per evade among the 20 evades available per minute on Spellbreaker was "high skill", I beg to differ.

what the hell are you talking about?

He hates the previous meta because it was skillful, so he tries to make it sound as ridiculous as possible, while being very far from the truth. Its his whole gimmick really. That and arguing that meta is always the lowest skill thing. Because clearly Mesmer, Revenant, Elementalist and thief are low-skill, and thats why theyve been the biggest mainstays in the metas, right? /s

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@UNOwen.7132 said:He hates the previous meta because it was skillful, so he tries to make it sound as ridiculous as possible, while being very far from the truth. Its his whole gimmick really. That and arguing that meta is always the lowest skill thing. Because clearly Mesmer, Revenant, Elementalist and thief are low-skill, and thats why theyve been the biggest mainstays in the metas, right? /s

i think both metas are meme for opposing reasons

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@mistsim.2748 said:Conquest is cancer.

10v10 or 15v15 would have a much more varied meta, and a ton of different roles would emerge (like it did at the height of 15v15 GvGs).

The best fights that remain in this game are small scale WvW fights.

Naa wait just a minute. Let me get this straight. You want to have a GvG game mode to replace conquest mode, in a balance state where stability is almost not existent and no support classes,?

have you actually GvG'd or played WvW at least once in the entire game dude? Do you even realize what you are saying? Do you think it's even possible to have a GvG fight in spvp balance that won't last more then a few seconds, where the meta isn't gonna be just 15 scourges running Trail of Anguish into each other at high speed and annihilate each other like a Void Out.

I'm done.

[Quadox.7834]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"Crozame.4098" said:Why diverse is equivalent to balance?

Diversity and Balance are the same thing yes. The word "balance" is just misunderstood because of the history of the word :

From probably since the early turn of the past millennia, the definition of balance has always meant placing two things on a scale, to try and see if the scale balances out. Back then, this was the primitive understanding for what made it possible to trade goods and make math calculations to determine the values of things for bartering... I have 5 chickens, they weigh the same as your 3 bags of seeds, therefor its an equivalent trade. Balance back then, was also used in a religious contexts such as the saying, "the balance of nature" and that's a pretty common saying even to this day...but nobody really understood it and that's why "the balance of nature" remained in this sort of religious abstraction in history.

Since then, people have gotten smarter, and by the time thermodynamics came about in the 1800's, balance was no longer a good way to describe what we see in the physical world. Systems live in a thermodynamic world, in which we make a heterogenous systems become homogenous through a process of entropy. We use these principles in order to do "work" and so a system in a homogenous state is essentially a state of a system that can no longer do work...and becomes inert. Balance of a system now meant that balance is an equilibrium of parts in a system where no part is different then any other part. By contrast, a heterogenous system, is the opposite...where all things are defined not by how the same they are, but rather how different things are from each other.

In essence, balance and diversity live on a spectrum between two ends. One end is homogeneous and the other is heterogeneous. On the homogenous end we find all things in complete equilibrium...where all things are the same, and everything is completely equal. On the opposing end, we find diversity, where all things are different from every other thing else. The old ways of thinking about "balance" is no longer valid in this description...why? Because the most balanced state is the most inert, homogenous state, where all things are completely equal to one another and all process in this spectrum go from heterogeneity to homogeneity. This is why one of the thermodynamic laws is that entropy always increases, and it's why our coffee always disperses from a beautiful swirly milky mixture into a homogenous brown liquid....it's the inevitable way of the world, in which a homogenous state is what all things are eventually heading for.

It goes even deeper then that... because we haven't even touched on scale invariance, which is how these processes are invariant at all scales, and that all systems are really moving between homogenous and heterogenous constantly by utilizing the next scale above or below it (That a heterogenous or homogenous system on one scale is homogenous or heterogenous on a larger one), and that this is the only way systems are able to actually do work, by exploiting the entropy of the system above or below it.

but essentially the old way of using the word "balance" is not sufficient to describe anymore, actual behaviors of things in the world. It's okay to say it in a sentence but when you try to describe a real process, you simply can't say the word "balance" without being wrong in some way, and so you have to say it in accordance with what we now understand.

Also, why a diverse state is better?So is Diversity better then Balance? In a technically meaningful sense, yes it is...but mathematically the two can't be separated. You can't have one without the other if you want a system to evolve.

A perfectly homogenous system can't evolve without some sort of heterogenous catalyst...Fortnite is a good example of a near homogenous game. It is in essence perfectly balanced, but there is one heterogenous component...and that component is the decision in which where you land in the game effects the outcome of the rest of the game. This allows a system of components to evolve from a maximally heterogenous state (The state in which all players have chosen different locations) to a convergent and collapsing homogenous state, where all players eventually meet and kill each other to see which of them will be the winner. The storm isn't even a necessary component to make this process happen, it simply makes this convergence happen faster and in a finite amount of time.

If you were to zoom out on this process, you'd see that the end convergent state is just the same homogenous state as what the game began with at a different scale before the heterogeneity was introduced. So you started with 100 homogenous players all in the same place (the bus) and you now have just 1 homogenous player in a place on the island. Both of these states here are equivalent to each other because the system no longer evolves...and if you think about it of course they would be equivalent right... just as equivalent if it was 1000 players on the bus, or a million...eventually there will be just 1 at the end of the game. And this is a critical component to understanding why both aspects of homogenous and heterogenous things have to exist in a game.

So it's very archaic way to think about this...but essentially without diversity (heterogeneity) a system can not change. and perfect balance (homogeneity) is the heat death of change...if I were to make a rudimentary analogy, Diversity is like being alive, while balance is like being dead. All things in nature live and die, and you need things to die in order to live...and it's a cycle.

Suppose the optimal strategy is balanced, why its a bad thing to reach it fast?

The optimal strategy is the eventual collapse to a single meta build. Now how is that a bad thing? Well aside from that mathematically it is inert and prevents the system from evolving, it is just not fun for everyone to play the same build on the same class. This is what we want to avoid...people don't like seeing 10 scourges each match, and people don't like when the counter-play to scourge...is another scourge.

There is also common theme in everything here, and it's about time. Thermodynamics spells out for us that a system moving toward equilibrium is inert in that it no longer has the ability to do work. In complexity theory, the same kind of entropy exists, in which there is a maximal complex state where things are computationally inert. If the ability to do work, or the ability for a system to evolve is defined by us reaching an inevitable end state of a system, then it would be obvious that it's in our best interest to make the heterogenous evolution of a system take more time so that we can enjoy the heterogenous evolution of the game longer.

1. The optimal strategy is not one single meta build. Ex there have been many metas where thief has been mandatory but stacking 5 thieves is obviously not optimal.
2. Player psychology and preference is important. Helseth doesn't only play mesmer because he thinks it is the most optimal spec in every scenario, and if you know Smash Bros. Melee, amsa doesn't play yoshi and axe doesn't play pikachu because these are the most optimal characters.
3. Removing a choice, while reducing the total number of possible states, can in practice increase diversity, options, and slow down entropy. Banning meta-knight in Smash Bros Brawl made the game more interesting, because it was so strong that players were basically forced to pick certain characters (especially a mirror meta-knight) to counter it. And yet meta-knight was way less unbalanced than many things have been in gw2 (partially because there is no healing in that game), because a good player could still beat a good meta-knight on other characters, whereas in guild wars 2 it is not uncommon for actually unwinnable matchups to exist, especially in the case of builds with high sustain.
4. While the Melee meta keeps evolving somewhat, due to the game's good core mechanics, people have known since the first tier list in 2002 that Fox, Falco, Shiek, Marth are in the top tier of characters. And fox has been in the number one spot for 15 years. Yet despite getting zero balance patches since, this has not decreased enjoyment of the game, because the melee "inert state" turns out to be pretty good, because the other characters (or rather about half of them) are good enough. Thus there is an argument to be made that fun mechanics and enjoyable gameplay take precedence over what we might call a heterogenous state.
5. I had more thoughts on this topic, maybe I'll type it out later but for now this will have to be enough.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Quadox.7834 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"Crozame.4098" said:Why diverse is equivalent to balance?

Diversity and Balance are the same thing yes. The word "balance" is just misunderstood because of the history of the word :

From probably since the early turn of the past millennia, the definition of balance has always meant placing two things on a scale, to try and see if the scale balances out. Back then, this was the primitive understanding for what made it possible to trade goods and make math calculations to determine the values of things for bartering... I have 5 chickens, they weigh the same as your 3 bags of seeds, therefor its an equivalent trade. Balance back then, was also used in a religious contexts such as the saying, "the balance of nature" and that's a pretty common saying even to this day...but nobody really understood it and that's why "the balance of nature" remained in this sort of religious abstraction in history.

Since then, people have gotten smarter, and by the time thermodynamics came about in the 1800's, balance was no longer a good way to describe what we see in the physical world. Systems live in a thermodynamic world, in which we make a heterogenous systems become homogenous through a process of entropy. We use these principles in order to do "work" and so a system in a homogenous state is essentially a state of a system that can no longer do work...and becomes inert. Balance of a system now meant that balance is an equilibrium of parts in a system where no part is different then any other part. By contrast, a heterogenous system, is the opposite...where all things are defined not by how the same they are, but rather how different things are from each other.

In essence, balance and diversity live on a spectrum between two ends. One end is homogeneous and the other is heterogeneous. On the homogenous end we find all things in complete equilibrium...where all things are the same, and everything is completely equal. On the opposing end, we find diversity, where all things are different from every other thing else. The old ways of thinking about "balance" is no longer valid in this description...why? Because the most balanced state is the most inert, homogenous state, where all things are completely equal to one another and all process in this spectrum go from heterogeneity to homogeneity. This is why one of the thermodynamic laws is that entropy always increases, and it's why our coffee always disperses from a beautiful swirly milky mixture into a homogenous brown liquid....it's the inevitable way of the world, in which a homogenous state is what all things are eventually heading for.

It goes even deeper then that... because we haven't even touched on scale invariance, which is how these processes are invariant at all scales, and that all systems are really moving between homogenous and heterogenous constantly by utilizing the next scale above or below it (That a heterogenous or homogenous system on one scale is homogenous or heterogenous on a larger one), and that this is the only way systems are able to actually do work, by exploiting the entropy of the system above or below it.

but essentially the old way of using the word "balance" is not sufficient to describe anymore, actual behaviors of things in the world. It's okay to say it in a sentence but when you try to describe a real process, you simply can't say the word "balance" without being wrong in some way, and so you have to say it in accordance with what we now understand.

Also, why a diverse state is better?So is Diversity better then Balance? In a technically meaningful sense, yes it is...but mathematically the two can't be separated. You can't have one without the other if you want a system to evolve.

A perfectly homogenous system can't evolve without some sort of heterogenous catalyst...Fortnite is a good example of a near homogenous game. It is in essence perfectly balanced, but there is one heterogenous component...and that component is the decision in which where you land in the game effects the outcome of the rest of the game. This allows a system of components to evolve from a maximally heterogenous state (The state in which all players have chosen different locations) to a convergent and collapsing homogenous state, where all players eventually meet and kill each other to see which of them will be the winner. The storm isn't even a necessary component to make this process happen, it simply makes this convergence happen faster and in a finite amount of time.

If you were to zoom out on this process, you'd see that the end convergent state is just the same homogenous state as what the game began with at a different scale before the heterogeneity was introduced. So you started with 100 homogenous players all in the same place (the bus) and you now have just 1 homogenous player in a place on the island. Both of these states here are equivalent to each other because the system no longer evolves...and if you think about it of course they would be equivalent right... just as equivalent if it was 1000 players on the bus, or a million...eventually there will be just 1 at the end of the game. And this is a critical component to understanding why both aspects of homogenous and heterogenous things have to exist in a game.

So it's very archaic way to think about this...but essentially without diversity (heterogeneity) a system can not change. and perfect balance (homogeneity) is the heat death of change...if I were to make a rudimentary analogy, Diversity is like being alive, while balance is like being dead. All things in nature live and die, and you need things to die in order to live...and it's a cycle.

Suppose the optimal strategy is balanced, why its a bad thing to reach it fast?

The optimal strategy is the eventual collapse to a single meta build. Now how is that a bad thing? Well aside from that mathematically it is inert and prevents the system from evolving, it is just not fun for everyone to play the same build on the same class. This is what we want to avoid...people don't like seeing 10 scourges each match, and people don't like when the counter-play to scourge...is another scourge.

There is also common theme in everything here, and it's about time. Thermodynamics spells out for us that a system moving toward equilibrium is inert in that it no longer has the ability to do work. In complexity theory, the same kind of entropy exists, in which there is a maximal complex state where things are computationally inert. If the ability to do work, or the ability for a system to evolve is defined by us reaching an inevitable end state of a system, then it would be obvious that it's in our best interest to make the heterogenous evolution of a system take more time so that we can enjoy the heterogenous evolution of the game longer.

3. Removing a choice, while reducing the total number of possible states, can in practice increase diversity, options, and slow down entropy. Banning meta-knight in Smash Bros Brawl made the game more interesting, because it was so strong that players were basically forced to pick certain characters (especially a mirror meta-knight) to counter it. And yet meta-knight was way less unbalanced than many things have been in gw2 (partially because there is no healing in that game), because a good player could still beat a good meta-knight on other characters, whereas in guild wars 2 it is not uncommon for actually unwinnable matchups to exist, especially in the case of builds with high sustain.

Thats the equivalent to nerfing the top tier build. Its also only really true if one build is overcentralising, in somethign we can call a tier 0 format. And no, Meta-Knight was way more unbalanced than anything GW2 has ever seen. Its more unbalanced than most things, I can only think of 2 charactery ever as broken as they were.

4. While the Melee meta keeps evolving somewhat, due to the game's good core mechanics, people have known since the first tier list in 2002 that Fox, Falco, Shiek, Marth are in the top tier of characters. And fox has been in the number one spot for 15 years. Yet despite getting zero balance patches since, this has not decreased enjoyment of the game, because the melee "inert state" turns out to be pretty good, because the other characters (or rather about half of them) are good enough. Thus there is an argument to be made that fun mechanics and enjoyable gameplay take precedence over what we might call a heterogenous state.

Fighting games are a different beast to MMOs. Fighting games by default tend to stagnate, its only recently that patches became a common thing. There is also the issue that its not even that simple. FighterZ has had a stagnant meta recently, with the silverback being the best character by a wide margin for months. And it decreased enjoyment of the game immensely.

[Quadox.7834]

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Quadox.7834 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"Crozame.4098" said:Why diverse is equivalent to balance?

Diversity and Balance are the same thing yes. The word "balance" is just misunderstood because of the history of the word :

From probably since the early turn of the past millennia, the definition of balance has always meant placing two things on a scale, to try and see if the scale balances out. Back then, this was the primitive understanding for what made it possible to trade goods and make math calculations to determine the values of things for bartering... I have 5 chickens, they weigh the same as your 3 bags of seeds, therefor its an equivalent trade. Balance back then, was also used in a religious contexts such as the saying, "the balance of nature" and that's a pretty common saying even to this day...but nobody really understood it and that's why "the balance of nature" remained in this sort of religious abstraction in history.

Since then, people have gotten smarter, and by the time thermodynamics came about in the 1800's, balance was no longer a good way to describe what we see in the physical world. Systems live in a thermodynamic world, in which we make a heterogenous systems become homogenous through a process of entropy. We use these principles in order to do "work" and so a system in a homogenous state is essentially a state of a system that can no longer do work...and becomes inert. Balance of a system now meant that balance is an equilibrium of parts in a system where no part is different then any other part. By contrast, a heterogenous system, is the opposite...where all things are defined not by how the same they are, but rather how different things are from each other.

In essence, balance and diversity live on a spectrum between two ends. One end is homogeneous and the other is heterogeneous. On the homogenous end we find all things in complete equilibrium...where all things are the same, and everything is completely equal. On the opposing end, we find diversity, where all things are different from every other thing else. The old ways of thinking about "balance" is no longer valid in this description...why? Because the most balanced state is the most inert, homogenous state, where all things are completely equal to one another and all process in this spectrum go from heterogeneity to homogeneity. This is why one of the thermodynamic laws is that entropy always increases, and it's why our coffee always disperses from a beautiful swirly milky mixture into a homogenous brown liquid....it's the inevitable way of the world, in which a homogenous state is what all things are eventually heading for.

It goes even deeper then that... because we haven't even touched on scale invariance, which is how these processes are invariant at all scales, and that all systems are really moving between homogenous and heterogenous constantly by utilizing the next scale above or below it (That a heterogenous or homogenous system on one scale is homogenous or heterogenous on a larger one), and that this is the only way systems are able to actually do work, by exploiting the entropy of the system above or below it.

but essentially the old way of using the word "balance" is not sufficient to describe anymore, actual behaviors of things in the world. It's okay to say it in a sentence but when you try to describe a real process, you simply can't say the word "balance" without being wrong in some way, and so you have to say it in accordance with what we now understand.

Also, why a diverse state is better?So is Diversity better then Balance? In a technically meaningful sense, yes it is...but mathematically the two can't be separated. You can't have one without the other if you want a system to evolve.

A perfectly homogenous system can't evolve without some sort of heterogenous catalyst...Fortnite is a good example of a near homogenous game. It is in essence perfectly balanced, but there is one heterogenous component...and that component is the decision in which where you land in the game effects the outcome of the rest of the game. This allows a system of components to evolve from a maximally heterogenous state (The state in which all players have chosen different locations) to a convergent and collapsing homogenous state, where all players eventually meet and kill each other to see which of them will be the winner. The storm isn't even a necessary component to make this process happen, it simply makes this convergence happen faster and in a finite amount of time.

If you were to zoom out on this process, you'd see that the end convergent state is just the same homogenous state as what the game began with at a different scale before the heterogeneity was introduced. So you started with 100 homogenous players all in the same place (the bus) and you now have just 1 homogenous player in a place on the island. Both of these states here are equivalent to each other because the system no longer evolves...and if you think about it of course they would be equivalent right... just as equivalent if it was 1000 players on the bus, or a million...eventually there will be just 1 at the end of the game. And this is a critical component to understanding why both aspects of homogenous and heterogenous things have to exist in a game.

So it's very archaic way to think about this...but essentially without diversity (heterogeneity) a system can not change. and perfect balance (homogeneity) is the heat death of change...if I were to make a rudimentary analogy, Diversity is like being alive, while balance is like being dead. All things in nature live and die, and you need things to die in order to live...and it's a cycle.

Suppose the optimal strategy is balanced, why its a bad thing to reach it fast?

The optimal strategy is the eventual collapse to a single meta build. Now how is that a bad thing? Well aside from that mathematically it is inert and prevents the system from evolving, it is just not fun for everyone to play the same build on the same class. This is what we want to avoid...people don't like seeing 10 scourges each match, and people don't like when the counter-play to scourge...is another scourge.

There is also common theme in everything here, and it's about time. Thermodynamics spells out for us that a system moving toward equilibrium is inert in that it no longer has the ability to do work. In complexity theory, the same kind of entropy exists, in which there is a maximal complex state where things are computationally inert. If the ability to do work, or the ability for a system to evolve is defined by us reaching an inevitable end state of a system, then it would be obvious that it's in our best interest to make the heterogenous evolution of a system take more time so that we can enjoy the heterogenous evolution of the game longer.

3. Removing a choice, while reducing the total number of possible states, can in practice increase diversity, options, and slow down entropy. Banning meta-knight in Smash Bros Brawl made the game more interesting, because it was so strong that players were basically forced to pick certain characters (especially a mirror meta-knight) to counter it. And yet meta-knight was way less unbalanced than many things have been in gw2 (partially because there is no healing in that game), because a good player could still beat a good meta-knight on other characters, whereas in guild wars 2 it is not uncommon for actually unwinnable matchups to exist, especially in the case of builds with high sustain.

Thats the equivalent to nerfing the top tier build. Its also only really true if one build is overcentralising, in somethign we can call a tier 0 format. And no, Meta-Knight was way more unbalanced than anything GW2 has ever seen. Its more unbalanced than most things, I can only think of 2 charactery ever as broken as they were.Absolutely not when it comes to 1v1, strict 1v1 balance just matters way more in a fighting game than a conquest 5v5 mode. Anyway, this specific point actually doesn't matter that much to the discussion.

4. While the Melee meta keeps evolving somewhat, due to the game's good core mechanics, people have known since the first tier list in 2002 that Fox, Falco, Shiek, Marth are in the top tier of characters. And fox has been in the number one spot for 15 years. Yet despite getting zero balance patches since, this has not decreased enjoyment of the game, because the melee "inert state" turns out to be pretty good, because the other characters (or rather about half of them) are
   good enough
   . Thus there is an argument to be made that fun mechanics and enjoyable gameplay take precedence over what we might call a heterogenous state.

Fighting games are a different beast to MMOs. Fighting games by default tend to stagnate, its only recently that patches became a common thing.ALL games tend to stagnate, that's what JusticeRetroHunter has been trying to tell you.There is also the issue that its not even that simple. FighterZ has had a stagnant meta recently, with the silverback being the best character by a wide margin for months. And it decreased enjoyment of the game immensely.

??? Yes, so nerfing/removing silverback would probably increase enjoyment (but i don't know anything about that game), which was my point, that removing something (thereby reducing the number of absolute options) can result in an in-practice increase of options and/or enjoyment.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@"Quadox.7834" said:??? Yes, so nerfing/removing silverback would probably increase enjoyment (but i don't know anything about that game), which was my point, that removing something (thereby reducing the number of absolute options) can result in an in-practice increase of options and/or enjoyment.

Here's the thing about this, because you are not exactly wrong, the issue is that this statement here is focusing on on one part of a large mechanism while ignoring other parts of it, and i believe the conclusion your drawing from it is not the right conclusion.

The way it works is exactly is as I stated in that comment i made before, You can have decreases in entropy, in a system where the entropy is only increasing, but that decrease is local and comes at the expense of an increase in entropy somewhere else in the system.

For example. Let's say you just removed a meta build from existence in the game, Build A, which exists in some hierarchy of builds, A B C D X Y and Z. This build could have in fact been very oppressive, where it was suppressing classes X, Y and Z, and was better then classes B C and D. With it's removal, X Y Z are no longer suppressed, and one would believe that with it's removal, you have increased diversity. However, build B, C and D relied on the existence of build A, as X Y Z are direct counters to B C and D, (Build A was suppressing X Y and Z enough for B C D to be able to be relevant.)

With the removal of build A, Build X Y and Z becomes meta, while B, C, D also become extinct as a result. So this second state is "more diverse" locally because there exists 3 meta builds, but this came at the cost of not just 1 build, but 4 builds in total, and the system's possibility space as a whole went from 7 builds in total to 6.

In essence what you are implicating in your post, is that one can beat entropy... but it's simply impossible to beat entropy. The 2nd law of thermodynamics (that entropy always increases) is not something we can't casually debate...it's probably one of the most well known and well studied facts about the world...to prove that it can be overcome it means you'd win a Nobel prize and become a celebrity physicist over night.

So, because of things like the example above, there is no way to decrease the entropy of a system, without disproportionality increasing it somewhere else. For these reasons having to do with the possibility space, the removal of things tends to be more detrimental, while adding things, tends to be non-detrimental because you are adding to the possibility space, for the only reason this matters is that you are increasing the time it takes to go from Heterogenous to homogenous... It's actually the addition of things that slows down entropy, and not the removal of something.

This is also where most people get the impression that "buffs" are better then "nerfs." Because the addition of things, adds to the possibility space, while the removal of things takes away from the possibility space. It's a one way process that favors buffs over nerfs. But people are confusing the addition of things into a system with numerical buffs...the two are not the same, and the reason that a numerical buff is not the same as the addition of an element to a system is the principles that are at work here...and most don't understand these principles...not to mention they are not easy to explain in a paragraph of text.

---

About this also

ALL games tend to stagnate...??? Yes, so nerfing/removing silverback would probably increase enjoyment

So i should be more clear on this. That this purely mathematical description of how balance and diversity works, that these are mathematical descriptions and really don't say anything about what is fun and what is not fun...whether stagnation is good or whether it's bad. I said this in the big post, that in an archaic sense, balance (homogeneity) is like dying, while diversity (heterogeneity) is like being alive...where all things must live and all things will eventually die, and the two are dependent on each other in order for the mechanism to work and for a system to undergo change. It's a very non-secular, and very global view of how those principles working to give us some sort of meaning , a system being able to change...in essence it does not describe what is fun, what is good or bad.

As an example, there are games that are close to perfect balance, like Chess and Checkers, that are still fun. These games have heterogenous evolutions toward homogeneity also... but the elements in these games are essentially balanced (where each player has the same number of pieces, that all have the same properties, so no player is any more advantaged then the other) and what's evolving in a game of chess is just like Fortnite...the collapse of a decision tree, where the possibility space lies in the decisions of the agents moving the pieces within the available landscape.

Guild Wars 2 can be a completely homogenous game of 5v5 scourges and still be a fun game...or it might not be fun at all...but what is ACTUALLY certain, is that the evolution of the system in terms of build diversity has stopped, and we have reached the homogenous state.

Cool thing about all this is that, in systems where there is a collapse to a homogenous state, there are stronger and stronger forces called "Self Criticality" that reset a system back into heterogenous states from homogenous states. That in a game of 5v5 scourges, more and more players are searching for the counter to scourge...if one is found then this counter EXPLODES the current homogenous state into a new evolution towards a different meta. I believe this is what you alluded to in your post, where a 5 man thief team is not optimal while a single thief on the team is. a 5 man of any homogenous grouping is going to have a rather higher rate of being countered by something, forcing a higher chance for a 5 man thief meta to devolve due to the existence of counters to it.

I talk about this a lot elsewhere, but essentially, diversity in a nature thrives on the above via anthropic principles...the more things there are, the more counters exist to other counters, the more likely self-criticality will occur at more frequent scales to trigger changes in the meta to the point where it is ALWAYS changing in a cycle over and over and over again. All these mechanisms are dependent on the complexity of the system, and therefor self criticality as a result of anthropics, are properties of complex systems.

Guess this post is getting a bit long now with another edit, but I want to more and more clearly illustrate what is exactly being said here so that people understand what i'm talking about, so i have a video here that shows the above :

In this video, the system starts in a homogenous state (all blue) and as the system is then allowed to evolve. The evolution is heterogenous, moving towards a homogenous state, which is the state of yellow/green. At yellow green, the homogenous state becomes self critical. The self criticality is esesntially an effort for the system to reset to a new evolution.

This is a consequence of the system moving toward a new homogenous state, which if we talk about this in terms of gw2 diversity, is supposed to be the state of a single meta game...if a counter is found and introduced into a the 10v10 scourge meta, where the system spent all this time evolving towards, the counter would explode this meta into a new evolution to a different meta...that is the whole idea behind criticality, and this criticality only works if those counters exist...but as you remove options, you are also removing counters and this criticality process happens LESS OFTEN, and that's an important detail not to miss about how all this complicated stuff, and anthropic's (having lots of elements acting in a system) is actually working together in order to give us a highly diverse, game.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Quadox.7834 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Quadox.7834 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"Crozame.4098" said:Why diverse is equivalent to balance?

Diversity and Balance are the same thing yes. The word "balance" is just misunderstood because of the history of the word :

From probably since the early turn of the past millennia, the definition of balance has always meant placing two things on a scale, to try and see if the scale balances out. Back then, this was the primitive understanding for what made it possible to trade goods and make math calculations to determine the values of things for bartering... I have 5 chickens, they weigh the same as your 3 bags of seeds, therefor its an equivalent trade. Balance back then, was also used in a religious contexts such as the saying, "the balance of nature" and that's a pretty common saying even to this day...but nobody really understood it and that's why "the balance of nature" remained in this sort of religious abstraction in history.

Since then, people have gotten smarter, and by the time thermodynamics came about in the 1800's, balance was no longer a good way to describe what we see in the physical world. Systems live in a thermodynamic world, in which we make a heterogenous systems become homogenous through a process of entropy. We use these principles in order to do "work" and so a system in a homogenous state is essentially a state of a system that can no longer do work...and becomes inert. Balance of a system now meant that balance is an equilibrium of parts in a system where no part is different then any other part. By contrast, a heterogenous system, is the opposite...where all things are defined not by how the same they are, but rather how different things are from each other.

In essence, balance and diversity live on a spectrum between two ends. One end is homogeneous and the other is heterogeneous. On the homogenous end we find all things in complete equilibrium...where all things are the same, and everything is completely equal. On the opposing end, we find diversity, where all things are different from every other thing else. The old ways of thinking about "balance" is no longer valid in this description...why? Because the most balanced state is the most inert, homogenous state, where all things are completely equal to one another and all process in this spectrum go from heterogeneity to homogeneity. This is why one of the thermodynamic laws is that entropy always increases, and it's why our coffee always disperses from a beautiful swirly milky mixture into a homogenous brown liquid....it's the inevitable way of the world, in which a homogenous state is what all things are eventually heading for.

It goes even deeper then that... because we haven't even touched on scale invariance, which is how these processes are invariant at all scales, and that all systems are really moving between homogenous and heterogenous constantly by utilizing the next scale above or below it (That a heterogenous or homogenous system on one scale is homogenous or heterogenous on a larger one), and that this is the only way systems are able to actually do work, by exploiting the entropy of the system above or below it.

but essentially the old way of using the word "balance" is not sufficient to describe anymore, actual behaviors of things in the world. It's okay to say it in a sentence but when you try to describe a real process, you simply can't say the word "balance" without being wrong in some way, and so you have to say it in accordance with what we now understand.

Also, why a diverse state is better?So is Diversity better then Balance? In a technically meaningful sense, yes it is...but mathematically the two can't be separated. You can't have one without the other if you want a system to evolve.

A perfectly homogenous system can't evolve without some sort of heterogenous catalyst...Fortnite is a good example of a near homogenous game. It is in essence perfectly balanced, but there is one heterogenous component...and that component is the decision in which where you land in the game effects the outcome of the rest of the game. This allows a system of components to evolve from a maximally heterogenous state (The state in which all players have chosen different locations) to a convergent and collapsing homogenous state, where all players eventually meet and kill each other to see which of them will be the winner. The storm isn't even a necessary component to make this process happen, it simply makes this convergence happen faster and in a finite amount of time.

If you were to zoom out on this process, you'd see that the end convergent state is just the same homogenous state as what the game began with at a different scale before the heterogeneity was introduced. So you started with 100 homogenous players all in the same place (the bus) and you now have just 1 homogenous player in a place on the island. Both of these states here are equivalent to each other because the system no longer evolves...and if you think about it of course they would be equivalent right... just as equivalent if it was 1000 players on the bus, or a million...eventually there will be just 1 at the end of the game. And this is a critical component to understanding why both aspects of homogenous and heterogenous things have to exist in a game.

So it's very archaic way to think about this...but essentially without diversity (heterogeneity) a system can not change. and perfect balance (homogeneity) is the heat death of change...if I were to make a rudimentary analogy, Diversity is like being alive, while balance is like being dead. All things in nature live and die, and you need things to die in order to live...and it's a cycle.

Suppose the optimal strategy is balanced, why its a bad thing to reach it fast?

The optimal strategy is the eventual collapse to a single meta build. Now how is that a bad thing? Well aside from that mathematically it is inert and prevents the system from evolving, it is just not fun for everyone to play the same build on the same class. This is what we want to avoid...people don't like seeing 10 scourges each match, and people don't like when the counter-play to scourge...is another scourge.

There is also common theme in everything here, and it's about time. Thermodynamics spells out for us that a system moving toward equilibrium is inert in that it no longer has the ability to do work. In complexity theory, the same kind of entropy exists, in which there is a maximal complex state where things are computationally inert. If the ability to do work, or the ability for a system to evolve is defined by us reaching an inevitable end state of a system, then it would be obvious that it's in our best interest to make the heterogenous evolution of a system take more time so that we can enjoy the heterogenous evolution of the game longer.

3. Removing a choice, while reducing the total number of possible states, can in practice increase diversity, options, and slow down entropy. Banning meta-knight in Smash Bros Brawl made the game more interesting, because it was so strong that players were basically forced to pick certain characters (especially a mirror meta-knight) to counter it. And yet meta-knight was way less unbalanced than many things have been in gw2 (partially because there is no healing in that game), because a good player could still beat a good meta-knight on other characters, whereas in guild wars 2 it is not uncommon for actually unwinnable matchups to exist, especially in the case of builds with high sustain.

Thats the equivalent to nerfing the top tier build. Its also only really true if one build is overcentralising, in somethign we can call a tier 0 format. And no, Meta-Knight was way more unbalanced than anything GW2 has ever seen. Its more unbalanced than most things, I can only think of 2 charactery ever as broken as they were.Absolutely not when it comes to 1v1, strict 1v1 balance just matters way more in a fighting game than a conquest 5v5 mode. Anyway, this specific point actually doesn't matter that much to the discussion.

Even then, not really?

4. While the Melee meta keeps evolving somewhat, due to the game's good core mechanics, people have known since the first tier list in 2002 that Fox, Falco, Shiek, Marth are in the top tier of characters. And fox has been in the number one spot for 15 years. Yet despite getting zero balance patches since, this has not decreased enjoyment of the game, because the melee "inert state" turns out to be pretty good, because the other characters (or rather about half of them) are
   good enough
   . Thus there is an argument to be made that fun mechanics and enjoyable gameplay take precedence over what we might call a heterogenous state.

Fighting games are a different beast to MMOs. Fighting games by default tend to stagnate, its only recently that patches became a common thing.ALL games tend to stagnate, that's what JusticeRetroHunter has been trying to tell you.

MMOs tend to get active development. They dont get the opportunity to stagnate like fighting games do.

There is also the issue that its not even that simple. FighterZ has had a stagnant meta recently, with the silverback being the best character by a wide margin for months. And it decreased enjoyment of the game immensely.

??? Yes, so nerfing/removing silverback would probably increase enjoyment (but i don't know anything about that game), which was my point, that removing something (thereby reducing the number of absolute options) can result in an in-practice increase of options and/or enjoyment.

Yes, it did, UI (the silverback, or ultra ignorance, plenty of names to call that bastard of a character by) was nerfed and it improved the game. But it wasnt removing anythign that solved things there, just nerfing the top.