After today's patch....

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

This bug singlehandedly proved how conceptually the February patch did the complete opposite of making the game fun and balanced. Literally one single overpowered rune made every dumb build one could think of viable again and diversity, even for a brief moment had returned. It just showed how important damage was in the game...the ability for things to actually accomplish a goal is critical to thing's being viable. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

6 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

This bug singlehandedly proved how conceptually the February patch did the complete opposite of making the game fun and balanced. Literally one single overpowered rune made every dumb build one could think of viable again and diversity, even for a brief moment had returned. It just showed how important damage was in the game...the ability for things to actually accomplish a goal is critical to thing's being viable. 

Like I said, it was the most fun 2 hours of WvW I've played since Feb2020.

[God.2708]

4 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

This bug singlehandedly proved how conceptually the February patch did the complete opposite of making the game fun and balanced. Literally one single overpowered rune made every dumb build one could think of viable again and diversity, even for a brief moment had returned. It just showed how important damage was in the game...the ability for things to actually accomplish a goal is critical to thing's being viable. 

I think it more showed how random impactful changes result in temporary (artificial?) diversity. I suspect after a week or two like that diversity would drastically reduce as people realized certain high damage things made other high damage things non viable. But in a system where not everyone has caught on you can abuse it with just about anything since you have an 'invisible' edge against players who aren't taking advantage of it.

 

 

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

40 minutes ago, God.2708 said:

I think it more showed how random impactful changes result in temporary (artificial?) diversity. I suspect after a week or two like that diversity would drastically reduce as people realized certain high damage things made other high damage things non viable. But in a system where not everyone has caught on you can abuse it with just about anything since you have an 'invisible' edge against players who aren't taking advantage of it.

 

 

 

It's not that there is "artificial" diversity...that's exactly how diversity works it's not artificial. This was talked about on spvp forums, but basically, There is always an optimization process happening, and it's the process of optimization that makes diversity less over time, the time that takes is itself dependent on the complexity of game. 

 

https://i.imgur.com/dxXFPqC.png

https://i.imgur.com/rgpJZdD.png

 

But what the patch bug showed,  (other then that the above hypothesis of the player that made the post above is false), is that damage is a critical component to one thing : The ability to accomplish an important fundamental goal. It's like imagine diversity in nature for a moment...can you imagine a world in which animals weren't capable of eating other animals or veggies to survive? Every animal would go extinct because it's a goal that is necessary for diversity to exist. Things have to be able to accomplish something to some meaningful extent rather than snubbed out of existence like the philosophy of the February nerfs.

 

Relevant thread you should read on these topics, and the full thread from which those images were taken from... :

 

Edited May 12, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[God.2708]

7 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

It's not that there is "artificial" diversity...that's exactly how diversity works it's not artificial. This was talked about on spvp forums, but basically, There is always an optimization process happening, and it's the process of optimization that makes diversity less over time, the time that takes is itself dependent on the complexity of game. 

 

https://i.imgur.com/XJrMW60.png

https://i.imgur.com/rgpJZdD.png

 

But what the patch bug showed,  (other then that the above hypothesis of the player that made the post above is false), is that damage is a critical component to one thing : The ability to accomplish an important fundamental goal. It's like imagine diversity in nature for a moment...can you imagine a world in which animals weren't capable of eating other animals or veggies to survive? Every animal would go extinct because it's a goal that is necessary for diversity to exist. Things have to be able to accomplish something to some meaningful extent rather than snubbed out of existence like the philosophy of the February nerfs.

 

Relevant thread you should read on these topics, and the full thread from which those images were taken from... :

 

That's a bit one dimensional. Increasing damage of course is antithetical to another important fundamental goal: not dying.

 

I often relate the state of a game to 5 man party curve. On both ends you have all 5 as damage dealers(in a death match environment). On one end that is the case because damage is so high that support is irrelevant so you simply try to kill the other player before you can die (heavily favors ranged play). Then damage gets lowered and supports get added till damage and support are evened out as support can 'nullify damage' and you want a 50 50 mix.

 

At this point a split happens. In a fight/deathmatch environment, lowering damage(or increasing support strength) further means compositions again add more dps because you have to have more in order to kill players. Till you again arrive at a party with nothing but damage dealers (with enough self support to live). In a node/hold the point environment supports get further added as killing others is irrelevant, you just want to be able to control the location (pvp bunker wars).

 

Now it's not so simple to say 50/50 is where maximal diversity occurs, as the game tends to have more damage dealing variants than support variants so making damage 'stronger' results in a more expanded roster than increasing support strength. But, simply increasing damage doesn't really healthily diversify on its own, you can have a release PoF situation or HoT situation where only one damage dealer matters and people just stack that to high heaven (scourge/herald respectively).

 

I do think this event speaks to the best tools to impact the games variety being runes/sigil though. You get a lot more diversification oomph from making more of them useful/unique since all classes can access them than you do from trying to minor tweak the classes themselves.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

49 minutes ago, God.2708 said:

That's a bit one dimensional. Increasing damage of course is antithetical to another important fundamental goal: not dying. 

 

I often relate the state of a game to 5 man party curve. On both ends you have all 5 as damage dealers(in a death match environment). On one end that is the case because damage is so high that support is irrelevant so you simply try to kill the other player before you can die (heavily favors ranged play). Then damage gets lowered and supports get added till damage and support are evened out as support can 'nullify damage' and you want a 50 50 mix.

 

At this point a split happens. In a fight/deathmatch environment, lowering damage(or increasing support strength) further means compositions again add more dps because you have to have more in order to kill players. Till you again arrive at a party with nothing but damage dealers (with enough self support to live). In a node/hold the point environment supports get further added as killing others is irrelevant, you just want to be able to control the location (pvp bunker wars).

 

Now it's not so simple to say 50/50 is where maximal diversity occurs, as the game tends to have more damage dealing variants than support variants so making damage 'stronger' results in a more expanded roster than increasing support strength. But, simply increasing damage doesn't really healthily diversify on its own, you can have a release PoF situation or HoT situation where only one damage dealer matters and people just stack that to high heaven (scourge/herald respectively).

 

I do think this event speaks to the best tools to impact the games variety being runes/sigil though. You get a lot more diversification oomph from making more of them useful/unique since all classes can access them than you do from trying to minor tweak the classes themselves.

I said this thought right : But what the patch bug showed,  (other then that the above hypothesis of the player that made the post above is false), is that damage is a critical component to one thing : The ability to accomplish an important fundamental goal.

 

It's not just about damage...the patch showed us in real time, that it's about being able to accomplish something of impact. Killing someone is impactful, and like you said, Being able to survive something is also impactful. If skills are nerfed to the point where they do basically nothing (provide 1 second of stab and do 1 damage) then what's happening is that these fundamental goals can't be achieved.

Edited May 12, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[ASP.8093]

2 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

This bug singlehandedly proved how conceptually the February patch did the complete opposite of making the game fun and balanced. Literally one single overpowered rune made every dumb build one could think of viable again and diversity, even for a brief moment had returned. It just showed how important damage was in the game...the ability for things to actually accomplish a goal is critical to thing's being viable. 

That's only because you're dumpstering people who are doing literally half as much damage as you.

 

Might as well be talking about the vibrant build diversity of the Queensdale event train meta.

[Aeolus.3615]

time to undust my DE  account  >:D  and for scientific reason test the rune..

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

18 minutes ago, Aeolus.3615 said:

time to undust my DE  account  >:D  and for scientific reason test the rune..

 

Too late. The bonus was disabled about 2 hours after it was reported.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

54 minutes ago, ASP.8093 said:

That's only because you're dumpstering people who are doing literally half as much damage as you.

 

Might as well be talking about the vibrant build diversity of the Queensdale event train meta.

everyone was running the same rune...maybe you weren't there but everyone was one-shotting everyone. It was a rare glimpse at looking into an extraordinary situation, which we can use to analyze exactly what are the implications of balance changes.

 

The one shotting did not destroy the diversity of the game...it made the game more diverse. 

 

I'm not saying that everything should one shot everything...this is an analysis of what it means for choices to be impactful, where playing any build while equipped with strength rune, made that build...no matter how dumb it was, have an impact on the game being played. This made builds that are irrevocably terrible otherwise, be able to do something. 

[Biermeister.4678]

It's just time to make a new meta

[MartelDeFer.5798]

Do we know if the Healing Firebrand Mantra is normal to heal for 200 with no healing statistics and for 350 with full support gear ?

healing skill that heal for 200 and giving Aegis does not look OP.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

16 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

everyone was running the same rune...maybe you weren't there but everyone was one-shotting everyone. It was a rare glimpse at looking into an extraordinary situation, which we can use to analyze exactly what are the implications of balance changes.

 

The one shotting did not destroy the diversity of the game...it made the game more diverse. 

 

I'm not saying that everything should one shot everything...this is an analysis of what it means for choices to be impactful, where playing any build while equipped with strength rune, made that build...no matter how dumb it was, have an impact on the game being played. This made builds that are irrevocably terrible otherwise, be able to do something. 

And that's healthy for the overall game becausee???
It's the same as humans bringing certain type of animal to the new land to "counter" something, but in reality that species were an invasive type and reduced animals in that area by quite a big percentage. In long run it destroyed subtle balance, in short run it fixed a problem, same would go with power damage if it wasn't neutered by tiny bit in feb2020.
Your "diversity" just spiked by a bit for "tests", after certain amount of time it would become LESS diverse overall, which isn't something we want. You could go with your red dot adding stuff, but that's just an arms race, which in very long run would left game in complete joke state, which we actually experienced at HoT and PoF release, the damage done by this new "diversity" is still haunting this game to this day.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

23 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

And that's healthy for the overall game becausee???
It's the same as humans bringing certain type of animal to the new land to "counter" something, but in reality that species were an invasive type and reduced animals in that area by quite a big percentage.

 

It's not the same thing and you're confusing the situation.

 

We didn't introduce a single build capable of one-shotting everyone...we gave ALL builds the ability to one shot ALL other builds when this rune was used. This is a completely different case then your example. 

[Dahkeus.8243]

Any balance that shifts to one-shotting is just objectively worse.  There are rare exceptions where high burst builds in small doses can work, but advocating for a one-shot meta is like saying that Slap Jack is the superior card game to Poker.

[anduriell.6280]

This is an rpg and not an FPS, there is no point to have any skills traits or stats if all one shot you.

 

The time to kill was ok before this patch i hope we go to that state again soon enough. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bristingr.5034]

19 hours ago, sniperman.1738 said:

ah I see, well those exploiting it should honestly be disciplined if they are exploiting it in competitive game modes

They won't. See ALL of SOS.

[XenesisII.1540]

I'm not in favor of one shot builds either, even for the classes I play, I just don't see the point of doing one shots in a rpg game, that stuff should be left to fps games that don't require gearing or large differences in classes. I'm also not in favor of infinite regen and buff builds....

 

The only problem that might have been exposed yesterday was that support was not toned down enough with last years patch that was should have brought it all down, not just the damage. And it obviously won't be tone down, since everyone loves the boon ball and that is also anet's intentional way of combat.

 

Edited May 12, 2021 by XenesisII.1540

[KrHome.1920]

3 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

The one shotting did not destroy the diversity of the game...it made the game more diverse.

I am not sure whether I don't get the irony in that sentence...

 

Anyway, if you are serious I have some logic for you: If everyone oneshots everyone then most of the game mechanics are useless, which means there is no diversity at all anymore. Your build does only need two things: a oneshot skill and a lot of damage denial skills (mobility, invulnerability and evasion ... blocks and stealth are too unreliable) to stay alive. So everyone will select that one build for its class that provides exactly that at best.

 

Poor necros and guardians...

 

We can discuss whether this adds higher skill demands to the game (I say no, it does just add cheese). But it certainly does not add more diversity.

Edited May 12, 2021 by KrHome.1920

[lockhart.6048]

nah those 2 hours of bugged runes were honestly garbage. 1 shot meta is just as trash if not more than the "boon ball" we have now. 

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

12 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

It's not the same thing and you're confusing the situation.

 

We didn't introduce a single build capable of one-shotting everyone...we gave ALL builds the ability to one shot ALL other builds when this rune was used. This is a completely different case then your example. 

I am not confusing the situation in the slightest here, you're the one that proposes a solution that won't work in an artificial environment run by humans.
My example still stands, instead of 1 invasive species, add 10 invasive species which will attack even bigger possible diversive population and in the end will dominate that area and start to attack each other, still lose-lose situation and still the "diversity" will be lost in the process. 
If you allow all classes to have "1shotmeme" builds, they'll dominate the meta and everything else in specific "areas" will be plagued by these builds in very short amount of time, there won't be some new "theorycrafters", because they'll always lose to that 1shot build. In other words, the diversity will die. In best case scenario everyone will run all classes with 1shot memebuild, in worst case, all will run only 1 class that is 1shot memebuild, because it's even more superior to others.
Imagine having so many choices from weapons/skills/traits/runes/sigils/stats to only being able to use 1 specific combination, because everything else is unplayable and 1 specific memebuild shuts down everything else, that's not healthy for the game.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

5 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

I am not confusing the situation in the slightest here, you're the one that proposes a solution that won't work in an artificial environment run by humans.

 

Yes, you are confusing the situation. I've studied diversity for many years now. Diversity is not some human construct that applies in some cases and not others...it is a mathematical law, and it operates universally everywhere. There is nothing artificial about how it works anywhere, and people who say that haven't spent the time to find out how it actually works.

 

It's hard to say where to start because I don't want you to get confused even more...but basically, you need just a little introduction on complex systems to understand why what you said is a confusion of the situation.

 

All things in a complex system operate on a set of very basic rules or goals. Things with autonomy, like a player or animal or whatever, have some small set of these autonomous goals... and are very simple like "You must eat to survive" or "You must win PVP match." And these primal goals define our more specific behaviors and such...

 

Example: "We have a job, so that we can make money, so that we can buy appliances that can make food for us to eat."

Example: "We make a build that grants us the ability to block these attacks, heal these conditions and have some mobility so that we can hold the node and escape the node if we have to so that we won't die to often so we can win the PVP Match."

 

The autonomous goal is the overarching plot essentially, and it defines the behaviors of agents...no matter what they are, agents follow these goals because they are fundamental. What this does, is that agents will find, more and more efficient ways to achieve these autonomous goals. You can see how both examples create an optimization process in some way or another..."Get a better job, to make more money, to buy better appliances to eat better food."

 

In the above example, there are 3 areas of diversity that you can immediately  identify...That's the diversity of jobs, the diversity of appliances, and the diversity of food. As the agent optimizes their life, they are looking for "the best" job, and "the best" appliances and "the best" food among some finite pool of jobs, finite pool of appliances and finite pool of food. (There is also an optimization process with money, but for now that's a bit less obvious and there's no need to go much into it. )

 

The point is, that the process of optimization in a diverse environment is an inherent property of ALL things in a system, so long as that things has some set of autonomous goals.

 

As a consequence of the above, all (complex) systems that exist are moving from being diverse to being uniform, where all agents in this system, will eventually work at the best job, to make the most amount of money, to buy the best appliances, to make the best food...You can see how such a state would be uniform, because there can only be one "best" job, and only one "best" appliance and so on. So this system goes from diverse to uniform.

 

So you're example isn't wrong or anything...it applies in many ways to many things when talking about diversity, but you are applying it to something we don't care about in the analysis. The analysis is whether autonomous agents can even ACHIEVE an autonomous goal or not. If some of the agents can't actually do anything of meaning to achieve their goals, how do you think these systems behave? It still behaves like it always does...things that CAN achieve goals will be able to achieve further goals, and things that can not achieve goals will die out.

 

What the strength rune did, was allow builds that couldn't achieve goals before, able to achieve goals, and this is why the system became more diverse. Yes it came at the cost introducing an invasive rune, which annihilated the diversity of all other runes...but this is not about the analysis of the rune or one-shot mechanics. It's an analysis of damage in the game, and whether there is enough damage on the skills that make up these builds to actually achieve goals...most of the time they can not, and this is why those build are dead, and practically do not exist because they can not compete with those that CAN achieve goals.

Edited May 13, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

5 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

sniff

The goal of life is death, everything else is an option, even eating is a possibility, not mandatory.
You could write that your theory is just math explanation for "META"...
There is enough damage for most classes though, the problem isn't "lack of damage", but the "available high sustain" via mechanics, stats, skills, runes, boons and to a degree conditions.
Doesn't matter if you hit 1kk or 1 if your enemy is "unviable" to you for 3/4 of fight or he's perma spamming you with condies that restrict your movement or he's stealthed, etc. That's the real problem in this game.

https://i.imgur.com/ZlDkXSZ.jpg
In this pic I've got hit for almost 17k, when I have on my class like 19k hp. That hit happened from stealth, on top of that that thief rendered on my screen 2s after I've got hit, fun and engaging, right? Ye, I run full marauder and he probably runs full zerk, but that damage would still 1shot me if I run zerk. I'm pretty sure that EVERY class is capable of dealing 10k+ damage within seconds if built for it.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

41 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

The goal of life is death, everything else is an option, even eating is a possibility, not mandatory.

You could write that your theory is just math explanation for "META"...

It's not "my theory." It's well established science...and yes that's exactly what it does...it's the mathematical/scientific explanation for how a meta emerges, and why it emerges. More importantly it creates a logic and builds a better framework in how people should understand problems in diversity and balance, and how to address them.

 

You should watch this whole video (because it's interesting)...but if you don't want to watch the whole thing, you can just skip to 7:00 mark. Everything I said is almost word for word from explained in this video. So again...this is well established stuff, and it is not just a crazy theory, it's applicable mathematics that apply in any system that involves autonomous agents. (if you are capable of making a decision, then you are an autonomous agent)

 

Edited May 13, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684