Balance changes to professions (PvE only discussion)

[Hesione.9412]

With the attention paid to the over-performing professions inside raids/t4 fractals and the rationale for nerfing skills/traits, how much thought is given to the average GW2 player?

 

There is reference made in various places (and I do not have a link to the Anet post) that the average player damage is about 10% that of the top performing player. Assuming that these top damage results are occurring in situations when players have proper food/utilities/squad or party compositions, this is an outlier compared to how much of the player population plays.

 

Therefore, how much do the nerfs (aka balance changes) affect the average player? If someone was doing 3K power before the patch, does that mean they will now do 2.5K? And if they were condi and doing 3K before the patch, are they now doing 4K? Or are the changes so severe that the average player is more extremely negatively or more extremely positively affected by the patch?

 

Fundamental question: is the play of the average player taken into account when considering underperforming/overperforming outcomes?

 

Just curious.

[Hague.5476]

I can say my PvE experience is immediately affected by having to refresh my formerly usefully-stacking swiftness boon every 30 seconds instead of every 90. "People hate not being able to get on their mount when CC'd and too lazy to use a cleanse so we slowed down all non-mounted players in a bid for some weird OCD forced time limit on beneficial effects the player has CHOSEN to apply to themselves." The previous limits were NOT arbitrary. There was a reason to limit stacking on quickness and a reason to have long times on a boon you use for exploring. Now you can get 30 seconds of quickness and alacrity two very powerful effects but have to stack swiftness which while useful in-combat is marginal and is most useful for simply getting around, an activity the player spends doing the most in-game. Why? It can't be anything more than some rigid adherence to a design doctrine that all boons must be 30 seconds max. It's just bad. What is even the difference between Superspeed and Swiftness? Why ever use one over the other if I can engineer the same duration?

Edited May 11, 2021 by Hague.5476

[Infusion.7149]

If you want a way to see how changes affect an average player just test auto attack damage. 😃

[mindcircus.1506]

2 hours ago, Hesione.9412 said:

With the attention paid to the over-performing professions inside raids/t4 fractals and the rationale for nerfing skills/traits, how much thought is given to the average GW2 player?

 

There is reference made in various places (and I do not have a link to the Anet post) that the average player damage is about 10% that of the top performing player. Assuming that these top damage results are occurring in situations when players have proper food/utilities/squad or party compositions, this is an outlier compared to how much of the player population plays.

 

Therefore, how much do the nerfs (aka balance changes) affect the average player? If someone was doing 3K power before the patch, does that mean they will now do 2.5K? And if they were condi and doing 3K before the patch, are they now doing 4K? Or are the changes so severe that the average player is more extremely negatively or more extremely positively affected by the patch?

 

Fundamental question: is the play of the average player taken into account when considering underperforming/overperforming outcomes?

 

Just curious.

Without Arc numbers (which are not currently possible due to the plugin not being updated) this discussion is 100% theory and of little value.

[Hesione.9412]

40 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

If you want a way to see how changes affect an average player just test auto attack damage. 😃

A lot of them interrupt their autoattack so do even less damage than if they simply autoattacked >.<

 

The patch notes specifically mention top-end players, e.g.

"We weren't completely happy that the top-end power and condition damage elementalist builds have had approximately the same sustained damage, so we're making some minor, targeted reductions to the power builds and increases to condition damage sources to help condition-damage builds really shine on bosses and other hard targets, and to ensure that they aren't left behind by the effect that the torment condition change has for other professions."

 

and

"Chronomancer has been steeply overperforming in a damage role in all content, leading to an environment in which the best way to tackle almost any challenge is to throw more Chronomancers at it. On the other hand, Mirage hasn't been performing at the level we'd like it to; it's been relegated to a damage role in only a few specific boss encounters in which confusion is particularly potent."

 

This indirectly or directly is referencing the outcomes at the harder end of PvE.

 

Anet are clearly monitoring what is going on in raids. But are they paying attention to general PvE that is also affected by these changes because there is no separation within the PvE category? What is the effect on the non-raiding player - which is most of the PvE player population? It's not like PvE general players are throwing more chronomancers at Shadow Behemoth, as a for example.

 

There's no point me running arcdps. I'm rarely in a squad, and even if I was, there would be a very small number of data points, from which it would be stupid to extrapolate. Surely Anet is collecting this data.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

3 hours ago, Hesione.9412 said:

With the attention paid to the over-performing professions inside raids/t4 fractals and the rationale for nerfing skills/traits, how much thought is given to the average GW2 player?

 

There is reference made in various places (and I do not have a link to the Anet post) that the average player damage is about 10% that of the top performing player. Assuming that these top damage results are occurring in situations when players have proper food/utilities/squad or party compositions, this is an outlier compared to how much of the player population plays.

 

Therefore, how much do the nerfs (aka balance changes) affect the average player? If someone was doing 3K power before the patch, does that mean they will now do 2.5K? And if they were condi and doing 3K before the patch, are they now doing 4K? Or are the changes so severe that the average player is more extremely negatively or more extremely positively affected by the patch?

 

Fundamental question: is the play of the average player taken into account when considering underperforming/overperforming outcomes?

 

Just curious.

 

 

That might depend on whether or not the 'average' player is using a Meta build, or any structured build at all.

 

 

One could assume that a player at the low end of the DPS spectrum may not be running an optimal build or gear setup.  It appears that the bulk of the tweaks in this patch are focused on the viability of specific builds for raiding, strikes and fractals.

 

Read through the changes and which specific ones look like a DPS loss to a player who may not be using the skills properly in the first place?

 

Mesmer specifically had nerfs to Danger Time and Chronophantasma, but the actual DPS loss in open world combat is going to be irrelevant in most cases.  The change to Seize the Moment, how many average players are going to maximize this enough to notice the loss? 

 

When most OW combat is over within a matter of seconds, and most Boss fights or Events don't require more than AA, do you think the average player will feel these nerfs?

 

 

 

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

I mean the new Explosive Shell is a nice mini Gunflame (in PvE only) because it hits the main target twice. So that is nice I guess.

[Malitias.8453]

4 hours ago, Hesione.9412 said:

Fundamental question: is the play of the average player taken into account when considering underperforming/overperforming outcomes?

You don't need to really consider them.
The majority of content is devloped to explicitly have no challenge at all, so they can do whatever they want and can even completely annihilate the balance for high-performance players without it affecting the average player.
That being said, I have no idea if they consider the average player when they make balance changes. All I know is they don't need to.

[Ayrilana.1396]

1 hour ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Without Arc numbers (which are not currently possible due to the plugin not being updated) this discussion is 100% theory and of little value.

 

It's updated now.

[Xanadrine.4352]

When I came back and saw they removed SB pet swap I stopped playing my SB. That was a completely unfun unneeded nerf. Wonder what I will log into tonight, what ability will be removed next.

 

[mindcircus.1506]

Ok.... let's first be clear on what the average player is.
Because yes... the average player in open world meta events, if Arc is to be trusted does about 3-5k sec...with crazy buffs that come from stacking dozens of people around them.This number seems reasonable from watching Arc at events  like Dragonfall, Drizzlewood, Silverwastes.

But are these the average player?

Are we asking if these players feel the nerfs, say when they are solo exploring open world?

[Linken.6345]

28 minutes ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Ok.... let's first be clear on what the average player is.
Because yes... the average player in open world meta events, if Arc is to be trusted does about 3-5k sec...with crazy buffs that come from stacking dozens of people around them.This number seems reasonable from watching Arc at events  like Dragonfall, Drizzlewood, Silverwastes.

But are these the average player?

Are we asking if these players feel the nerfs, say when they are solo exploring open world?

Yes  someone asked that question and to that question I'd say no since open world is so easy the nerf do nothing just throw more bodies at it.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

If my DPS is cut in half, it will take twice as long to complete content and get the rewards.  Doesn't matter much what the exact number is.  It is all relative to the player themselves.  So yes, these kinds of nerfs do affect the average player's performance.  

[Astralporing.1957]

8 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

If you want a way to see how changes affect an average player just test auto attack damage. 😃

That's a very superficial way of looking at things. There were changes in the past that had massive impact on OW players, for example, that clearly was never part of consideration for devs at all.

One good example is any Confusion rework attempt - they've done that more than once, and every single time they did it, it required at least half a year of tweaking and balancing to make it work sensibly in PvE. With some edge cases they never bothered to address at all.

(notice, that if you want to talk about impact of changes on average players, you need to take into consideration not only how he skill/mechanic changes will impact player directly, but also how it will impact the mobs that happen to use the same skills/mechanics)

i.e. the Retaliation change is going to have significant positive impact on average players in any case where that boon originally appeared on mobs. Any condi changes are bound to have some impact as well - most of condi changes that were done in the past with PvP in mind usually had negative impact on OW players)

Edited May 12, 2021 by Astralporing.1957

[Dami.5046]

2 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Ok.... let's first be clear on what the average player is.
Because yes... the average player in open world meta events, if Arc is to be trusted does about 3-5k sec...with crazy buffs that come from stacking dozens of people around them.This number seems reasonable from watching Arc at events  like Dragonfall, Drizzlewood, Silverwastes.

But are these the average player?

Are we asking if these players feel the nerfs, say when they are solo exploring open world?

As a ranger player, I certainly felt the pet nerf on SB during open world. It's just annoying, just as having two weapon sets on engi/ele is annoying when it's locked in combat and you can't change it. It's too early for me to judge the last lot.

I can see with the legendary armoury us getting more and more nerfs, i mean Anet have got to sell the benefits of legendary gear some how?

[Astralporing.1957]

11 minutes ago, Dami.5046 said:

As a ranger player, I certainly felt the pet nerf on SB during open world. It's just annoying, just as having two weapon sets on engi/ele is annoying when it's locked in combat and you can't change it. It's too early for me to judge the last lot.

I can see with the legendary armoury us getting more and more nerfs, i mean Anet have got to sell the benefits of legendary gear some how?

More likely they are preparing ground for EoD elite specs. Remember, that HoT and PoF were also preceded by array of nerfs.

[Dami.5046]

1 minute ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

More likely they are preparing ground for EoD elite specs. Remember, that HoT and PoF were also preceded by array of nerfs.

Yeah true.

[36F0A0BB-7480-4A73-8575-EE]

Just posting to share a tear with those who invested in diviner gear for smoother/faster solo pve content or for precasts in fractals. WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THIS 30 SECONDS MAX BOON DURATION? Not a great joke if you ask me. Example: warrior's rage signet supposed to give 50 seconds fury, swiftness, and might at 100% concentration. Now it just gives 30 seconds fury, swiftness and 50 seconds might (the info bubble is not even updated properly and i'm not even sure that the 50 seconds might are real or just a bug). Shame, it really makes you want to keep playing and waste time and gold on gear... Not really, no.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Although the patch is barely live, I've already had a few conversations with irritated players. The most recent request was a player, who runs one of my PvE Open World builds. The patch however ruined one of the core-mechanics it was utilizing :S. Sort of easy to fix in that special case. But a lot of players are not into theory-crafting and build optimization. It can take a while to figure out something that works. The more frustrating it is, when that build suddenly stops working.

 

As this patch really plays in the favor of the meta-community, I hope they enjoy it and we get a little less complaints from them now. It will definitely take a while to bring the others back to normal. 

 

If you have friends or guildmates who use specific non-meta builds, try to land them a hand in the next days. In several cases the problems can be fixed with a few clicks. But there will be also plenty of cases, we have to start from scratch again :S.

 

 

[PookieDaWombat.6209]

To be fair, the core game (level 1 up to Zaihtan) is do-able by banging your face on your keyboard, and HoT is do-able by doing much of the same, but occasionally remembering to get out of certain red circles, so for most players skilll use, build comp, and gear is kinda nebulous.  I lost count of how many new players I've had to tell that their gear and traits don't matter for the core game, but that they should think about optimizing for end game content if that was the direction they wanted to go in.  That being said, the simple fact that the skill level "jump" between general PvE and the other content is so huge (not to mention playstyles being so different) its no wonder that such a big part of the population never get into those "elite" levels of damage.  There's no incentive to do so either through game play as they level or from communities that no matter how much they say they welcome new players, they have an inordinate amount of players that seem to embody the word "toxic".  This means most new players tend to shy from that "elite" content and barely learn what a combo field is, or how to use it.  

[Lottie.5370]

44 minutes ago, 36F0A0BB-7480-4A73-8575-EE said:

Just posting to share a tear with those who invested in diviner gear for smoother/faster solo pve content or for precasts in fractals. WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THIS 30 SECONDS MAX BOON DURATION? Not a great joke if you ask me. Example: warrior's rage signet supposed to give 50 seconds fury, swiftness, and might at 100% concentration. Now it just gives 30 seconds fury, swiftness and 50 seconds might (the info bubble is not even updated properly and i'm not even sure that the 50 seconds might are real or just a bug). Shame, it really makes you want to keep playing and waste time and gold on gear... Not really, no.

 

Just to piggyback on this, they haven't bothered to update any skills to show the new max boon duration. If you're running 100% boon duration on a FB, Retreat still says it gives you 40 seconds of swiftness and aegis, yet it will only give you 30 seconds of each (the same with any skill that tells you it will give you more than 30 seconds).

 

However, the IBS mastery that gives you stability when you use your elite skill does give you 60 seconds of stability.

 

It feels like they poorly implemented these changes with some arbitrary number.

 

16 hours ago, Hesione.9412 said:

With the attention paid to the over-performing professions inside raids/t4 fractals and the rationale for nerfing skills/traits, how much thought is given to the average GW2 player?

 

There is reference made in various places (and I do not have a link to the Anet post) that the average player damage is about 10% that of the top performing player. Assuming that these top damage results are occurring in situations when players have proper food/utilities/squad or party compositions, this is an outlier compared to how much of the player population plays.

 

Therefore, how much do the nerfs (aka balance changes) affect the average player? If someone was doing 3K power before the patch, does that mean they will now do 2.5K? And if they were condi and doing 3K before the patch, are they now doing 4K? Or are the changes so severe that the average player is more extremely negatively or more extremely positively affected by the patch?

 

Fundamental question: is the play of the average player taken into account when considering underperforming/overperforming outcomes?

 

Just curious.

 

But more on topic of the thread: if an average player is doing 3-4k DPS I can only assume that they don't really care what damage they are dealing, and I don't really think they should be considered when any changes that have a significant effect to them will only have an even bigger effect on the top damage dealers. If you have a person doing 30kp dps, and a person doing 3k dps, a change that affects damage by 10% is going to have a 3k impact vs a 300 dmg impact. You are going to notice the change WAY more on the person that was doing 30k than the person that was doing 3k. Any changes affect the outliers so much more than the average player.

 

You want to keep the overall balance in mind when making a patch like that, but the average should never be the priority when looking at balance, having outliers too far ahead or too far behind is too much of a problem and way more unhealthy to the game.

[Obtena.7952]

12 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

 

 

That might depend on whether or not the 'average' player is using a Meta build, or any structured build at all.

 

 

One could assume that a player at the low end of the DPS spectrum may not be running an optimal build or gear setup.  It appears that the bulk of the tweaks in this patch are focused on the viability of specific builds for raiding, strikes and fractals.

 

Read through the changes and which specific ones look like a DPS loss to a player who may not be using the skills properly in the first place?

 

Mesmer specifically had nerfs to Danger Time and Chronophantasma, but the actual DPS loss in open world combat is going to be irrelevant in most cases.  The change to Seize the Moment, how many average players are going to maximize this enough to notice the loss? 

 

When most OW combat is over within a matter of seconds, and most Boss fights or Events don't require more than AA, do you think the average player will feel these nerfs?

 

 

 

 

Here is a theory on what I think happens

 

1. Anet has something that tells them what is overtuned, based on how high skilled players interact with the game. Obviously, this will typically be in instanced content. This is where we see Anet come in with comments about classes or skills overperforming ... like Chrono in this patch. 

2. Anet has something that gives them an aggregate measure of how a class and its e speces are distributed for being played. That tells them areas to focus in on. This is where we see Anet coming in with comments about how Ele is in a generally good place. 

3. Anet will always change things that thematically don't work for them, or feel 'bad' when you play them. Mantras would be a good example of that in this patch. 

4. I have yet to see Anet indicate some change to optimize for content, as you would expect if they were balancing to meta level. 

 

I think where 'average players' are considered is with changes to how things work or thematic ones, like Mantra or Retaliation. I think we assume far too much about how performance changes (like torment) impacts the average player. 

Edited May 12, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[mindcircus.1506]

4 hours ago, Dami.5046 said:

As a ranger player, I certainly felt the pet nerf on SB during open world. It's just annoying, just as having two weapon sets on engi/ele is annoying when it's locked in combat and you can't change it. It's too early for me to judge the last lot.

I can see with the legendary armoury us getting more and more nerfs, i mean Anet have got to sell the benefits of legendary gear some how?

We aren't discussing the "pet nerf on SB".

We are asking if yesterday's patch has impacted your damage, and if so: By how much and what are you using to measure it?"

6 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

If my DPS is cut in half, it will take twice as long to complete content and get the rewards.  Doesn't matter much what the exact number is.  It is all relative to the player themselves.  So yes, these kinds of nerfs do affect the average player's performance.  

Was your DPS cut in half by yesterday's patch or is this whataboutism?

How have you measured the impact of yesterday's nerf?

[Dami.5046]

54 minutes ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

We aren't discussing the "pet nerf on SB".

We are asking if yesterday's patch has impacted your damage, and if so: By how much and what are you using to measure it?"

Was your DPS cut in half by yesterday's patch or is this whataboutism?

How have you measured the impact of yesterday's nerf?

oh I apologize, I should of quoted the post above yours. 

Since you didn't quote that one either.

as you were. 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

2 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Was your DPS cut in half by yesterday's patch or is this whataboutism?

How have you measured the impact of yesterday's nerf?

This thread is a conceptual question.  I gave the conceptual answer.