Should Raids be balanced separately like PvP and WvW?

[Veprovina.4876]

It's clear to everyone by now that Anet balances classes by their Raids performance, and just doesn't think about how that will affect any other mode so...

Why not balance Raids the same way you balance WvW and PvP - separately?

 

Like the torment change. This insanely cripples torment in competitive envirnments because yeah, everyone stands still there right? No, that was clearly only changed with Raids in mind, no matter how it will affect anything else because bosses stand still.

 

Can't Anet just balance classes for Raids without messing up every other game mode?

Cause, even open world PvE will now suffer from this (even if it's easy content).

 

I don't actually have an opinion on the balance changes yet, i wanna see them in action before forming one, but i just think they would have such an easier time balancing the classes for raids separately because they're a closed system, you know how much HP bosses have, and how much DPS you need, what their weaknesses are, then balance everything accordingly to the desired difficulty, making sure there's a few builds that are viable and call it a day. Why do Raids always have to affect WvW indirectly?

Edited May 1, 2021 by Veprovina.4876

[Veprovina.4876]

Wow. Literally no one has an opinion on this? 😕

[Raknar.4735]

Not the first time a balance change to one gamemode made skills less fun in others, like the SotM startup delay change for SPvP and WvW that affected all other gamemodes.

 

Don't get me wrong, separating balance changes depending on gamemode is good, but anything that goes further than simple number changes is apparently not possible and will result in changes to all gamemodes. The torment changes could be such a change (even though it is just changing the damage numbers from moving/standing).

 

Not sure if a gamemode as niche as raids needs their own changes.

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Raknar.4735
spelling

[Yggranya.5201]

Simple: There is no balance until all game modes are completely separate. In short, yes.

 

Then there's the problem. Is anet willing to put in the effort to balance anything?

[Khisanth.2948]

15 hours ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

It's clear to everyone by now that Anet balances classes by their Raids performance, and just doesn't think about how that will affect any other mode so...

Why not balance Raids the same way you balance WvW and PvP - separately?

They already balance separately. You are just having a vocabulary issue. 😉

The engine can not do mechanics split and even if it could the devs probably wouldn't want to.

 

15 hours ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

Like the torment change. This insanely cripples torment in competitive envirnments because yeah, everyone stands still there right? No, that was clearly only changed with Raids in mind, no matter how it will affect anything else because bosses stand still.

That is also not true. For example in PvP there are various channeling mechanics. In WvW, stacking up before doing some sort of thing is pretty common and of course there are the people building siege, using sieges or trying to do repairs.

 

Getting stunned or immobilized will now increase the damage of torment.

On the other hand every time someone stupidly useless a knockback on a NPC it will mean a DPS loss ... but that is mostly a PvE problem.

 

I think they should change the damage scaling from being binary to a continuous range matching the movement speed range of 0 to 400. So the maximum multiplier will be at 0 speed and minimum multiplier will be at 400. This would allow it to interact with superspeed, swiftness, cripple and chilled which should be okay now that all those have duration caps. By interacting with crippled and chilled it would also indirectly interact with resistance. On second thought maybe that is getting too complex for a single condition out of many.

[Boulder.3589]

@op

Pve is already balanced separately from pvp and wvw, as you mentioned. Do you mean further separate Pve into raid balancing and open world balancing? I mainly play GW2 in openworld, but I don't think open world balancing is neccessary nor worth the extra dev work.

[BlueJin.4127]

I'm not really sure that raids need separate balancing from open world PVE. Aside from difficulties, the basic design is the same. While an over powered raid build doesn't necessarily need to be nerfed for open world, it also doesn't need to stay OP in order to be playable in open world. Separating balances for raids is too much work for little benefits. Players can always just adjust traits, skills, and gears for different PVE modes.

 

As for balance between PVE and competitive modes, they are already separated. That doesn't mean nothing can affect other modes. There will always be some collateral.

Edited May 5, 2021 by BlueJin.4127

[Ayrilana.1396]

No, they should not be balanced separately for many reasons.

 

1) This adds additional complexity for balancing and it's already difficult enough for them to reasonably balance the game across three game modes.

2) Balancing raids separately would create a precedent which then could be used for other modes to be balanced separately such as fractals for example.

3) Having skills and traits behave differently would cause confusion with players.

4) Where open world content can be completed with practically any build, where the vast majority of players don't perform anywhere near what their class is capable of, where many players simply mash skills or just auto attack; how would these changes really affect them?

[Yggranya.5201]

16 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

No, they should not be balanced separately for many reasons.

 

1) This adds additional complexity for balancing and it's already difficult enough for them to reasonably balance the game across three game modes.

You know why it's less complex now? Simply because anet doesn't care if it's bad for other game modes. They ignore it and leave it there for years. It would be much easier if they balanced game modes separately, and the why of it should be obvious.

 

 

16 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

2) Balancing raids separately would create a precedent which then could be used for other modes to be balanced separately such as fractals for example.

Balancing raids without caring about screwing up the rest of PvE is just lazy and dumb. Especially when the balancing can be summed up as such: "Oh, someone found a combination of skills/classes that trivialize this boss? Well, time to remove that synergy."

 

16 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

3) Having skills and traits behave differently would cause confusion with players.

If that were true, everyone would be playing only a single game during their entire life. Otherwise they'd get confused, right?

 

16 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

4) Where open world content can be completed with practically any build, where the vast majority of players don't perform anywhere near what their class is capable of, where many players simply mash skills or just auto attack; how would these changes really affect them?

Those who do more than your average AFKers would be sad that people in another game mode made their fun build worthless. But hey, i'm sure they don't matter because their "casual".

[Ayrilana.1396]

1 hour ago, Yggranya.5201 said:

You know why it's less complex now? Simply because anet doesn't care if it's bad for other game modes. They ignore it and leave it there for years. It would be much easier if they balanced game modes separately, and the why of it should be obvious.

 

 

Balancing raids without caring about screwing up the rest of PvE is just lazy and dumb. Especially when the balancing can be summed up as such: "Oh, someone found a combination of skills/classes that trivialize this boss? Well, time to remove that synergy."

 

If that were true, everyone would be playing only a single game during their entire life. Otherwise they'd get confused, right?

 

Those who do more than your average AFKers would be sad that people in another game mode made their fun build worthless. But hey, i'm sure they don't matter because their "casual".

 

1) You do realize that complexity increases as you have to balance more and more different ways for additional modes right?  Ignoring balancing has absolutely nothing to do with complexity so I don't know why you posted what you did.

 

2) And as I said in my post, balancing raids separately would create a precedent which then could be used for other modes to be balanced separately such as fractals for example.

 

3)  There's a difference between how skills/traits behave between different games and how they behave within a single game.  I'm pretty sure that you're well aware of that so I don't get why you brought that up other than to have "something" against each of my points.

 

4) I never said anything about AFK players as I was commenting about players in general.  I don't see how you mixed the two up...

[WindBlade.8749]

On 5/2/2021 at 4:19 PM, Raknar.4735 said:

Not sure if a gamemode as niche as raids needs their own changes.

Theses days there is more players in raids than in SPVP (don't forget the bots).

I will also not call raids a niche like fractals cm are not to, there is too much players in it to be a niche.

Dungeons on the other hand ...

[Firebeard.1746]

On 5/1/2021 at 4:55 PM, Veprovina.4876 said:

It's clear to everyone by now that Anet balances classes by their Raids performance, and just doesn't think about how that will affect any other mode so...

Why not balance Raids the same way you balance WvW and PvP - separately?

 

Like the torment change. This insanely cripples torment in competitive envirnments because yeah, everyone stands still there right? No, that was clearly only changed with Raids in mind, no matter how it will affect anything else because bosses stand still.

 

Can't Anet just balance classes for Raids without messing up every other game mode?

Cause, even open world PvE will now suffer from this (even if it's easy content).

 

I don't actually have an opinion on the balance changes yet, i wanna see them in action before forming one, but i just think they would have such an easier time balancing the classes for raids separately because they're a closed system, you know how much HP bosses have, and how much DPS you need, what their weaknesses are, then balance everything accordingly to the desired difficulty, making sure there's a few builds that are viable and call it a day. Why do Raids always have to affect WvW indirectly?

So torment based classes, like scourge see a ton of usage in PVP. They actually have already started balancing separately, but I think the balance team figured this could solve a lot of issues in one shot.

[Samnang.1879]

They should stop balancing altogether. 

 

The notes are too long to read if you play all the classes. 😴😴😴

[Melech.4308]

I agree, raids should be balanced separately, and yes, it is obvious to me that in the upcoming balance patch notes, the team is basing balances on raids. To add one more reason why I think they should be balanced separately, all raid bosses are classed as "plants" (yes, Sabetha is a "plant", as well as Qadim, Adina, Sabir, ALL PLANTS!), but even worse, you cannot use mob-specific buffs during raid instances. 

[Ayrilana.1396]

And a lot of world bosses are essentially plants, or at the very least, barely move at all.  All of the trash mobs die too quickly for condi to matter.

[Khisanth.2948]

Oh right! How did I forget this. It will also improve PvD. 🙂

[mindcircus.1506]

The main reason power Ranger is being nerfed is for Fractal balance where people were stacking 3 of them in each 5 man team for T4's. Not because of it's situational strength against 3 raid bosses.

Condi Firebrand's nerf was also in direct relation to fractals.

The functionality of torment being changed was actually a move made largely for competitive, where the condition lead to some genuinely unfun gameplay, specifically against rev.

 

Raids are PvE and should be balanced with the rest of the PvE content.

They are not a separate game mode.

 

Scapegoating a balance change you don't like because of raids is just part of the divisive thinking that a lot of people like pass off around here without considering facts.

[Firebeard.1746]

13 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

The main reason power Ranger is being nerfed is for Fractal balance where people were stacking 3 of them in each 5 man team for T4's. Not because of it's situational strength against 3 raid bosses.

Condi Firebrand's nerf was also in direct relation to fractals.

The functionality of torment being changed was actually a move made largely for competitive, where the condition lead to some genuinely unfun gameplay, specifically against rev.

 

Raids are PvE and should be balanced with the rest of the PvE content.

They are not a separate game mode.

 

Scapegoating a balance change you don't like because of raids is just part of the divisive thinking that a lot of people like pass off around here without considering facts.

I think the devs also figured many condi PVE classes would benefit from the inversion. I believe competitive was the goal, but they also saw and opportunity and used a bandaid they thought would nerf necro pretty hard but also fix another issue.

100% on the scapegoating each other thing though.

[Nephalem.8921]

4 hours ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

I think the devs also figured many condi PVE classes would benefit from the inversion. I believe competitive was the goal, but they also saw and opportunity and used a bandaid they thought would nerf necro pretty hard but also fix another issue.

100% on the scapegoating each other thing though.

Nobody in the raid community asked for torment buffs. This was a pvp change since standing still is just not a valid counterplay unlike for example increasing the damage with immob.

Torment heavy classes like renegade and mirage where already strong in raids. They even had to nerf renegade in this patch in pve because it was already on the stronger side before the changes.

The torment change was not because of raids so it would be nice if people would stop blaming them for this.

Balance doesnt matter in open world at all so balacing for fractals and raids seems reasonable. All open world content can be completed naked with pressing 1.

Edited May 7, 2021 by Nephalem.8921

[Cyninja.2954]

On 5/2/2021 at 1:55 AM, Veprovina.4876 said:

It's clear to everyone by now that Anet balances classes by their Raids performance, and just doesn't think about how that will affect any other mode so...

Why not balance Raids the same way you balance WvW and PvP - separately?

So torment was balanced around raids, what about retaliation? What about resistance? Where those too balanced around raids?

 

Stop looking at parts of a balance patch while trying to make sense of it. The developers balance different abilities around their uses in different game modes.

 

As far as separate balance: that's already happening and the 3 pillars are:

- competitive PvE content (mostly fractals and raids)

- Spvp

- WvW

 

though there has been a lack of huge balance changes overall.

 

Why is there no balance for open world PvE? Simple: when content is so easy that an untrained monkey with both hands tied behind his back while blindfolded can clear the content, there is no need for balance.  Everything is already overpowered. I'm serious, I encourage everyone just go copy/paste some of Lord Hizen's open world builds if they are unable to come up with some on their own. Just so more people realize how absolutely insignificant open world PvE content in this game is.

Edited May 7, 2021 by Cyninja.2954

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Why is there no balance for open world PvE? Simple: when content is so easy that an untrained monkey with both hands tied behind his back while blindfolded can clear the content, there is no need for balance.  Everything is already overpowered. I'm serious, I encourage everyone just go copy/paste some of Lord Hizen's open world builds if they are unable to come up with some on their own. Just so more people realize how absolutely insignificant open world PvE content in this game is.

One thing you never really want to do is to teach players that the "balance does not matter". Even if it truly does not, for a huge majority of tha game's content, you have to at least pretend it does. Otherwise the players will learn to expect that "balanceless" approach to the whole game. And will not understand why at some point it suddenly changes.

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

One thing you never really want to do is to teach players that the "balance does not matter". Even if it truly does not, for a huge majority of tha game's content, you have to at least pretend it does. Otherwise the players will learn to expect that "balanceless" approach to the whole game. And will not understand why at some point it suddenly changes.

True, the benefit here is:

those players who are invested enough to actually notice or be concerned about lack of balance are very likely able to find the builds necessary to make content meaningless in open world.

 

For all those players who might struggle and/or are unable to find their way to over-performing builds, be it through guidance of others or finding them their selves, no amount of balance would make a difference.

 

So again, there is absolutely no necessity to balance anything around this games open world content. Still to distract from this fact PvE balance is called PvE balance and not instanced content balance, which it actually is.

Edited May 7, 2021 by Cyninja.2954

[Myriada.7580]

Thanks @Cyninja.2954 for making sense here in the forums. It's refreshing to read.

[Juan.6124]

On 5/2/2021 at 1:55 AM, Veprovina.4876 said:

Like the torment change. This insanely cripples torment in competitive envirnments because yeah, everyone stands still there right? No. 

Make them. Use your abilities to force them to stand still.

[mindcircus.1506]

35 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

So again, there is absolutely no necessity to balance anything around this games open world content. Still to distract from this fact PvE balance is called PvE balance and not instanced content balance, which it actually is.

The duration cap on non-damaging conditions is however, 100% a change made for open world players who can't be bothered to put any kind of condition cleanse in their build.

It's focus is to make the easiest content in the game even easier.