Discussion on Combat and Boons.

[XenesisII.1540]

Boon balls, it exist, I have my problems with it, on how it highly affects groups from pugs to hardcores, with it's stacking and how conditions are dealt with and recycled, problems with the meta having 2-4 must have classes to fill up 50-75% of a zerg. It all probably won't change in the upcoming expansion. But been thinking of this for a while and wanted to see what the general opinion would be on certain things, on whether or not it would be a good direction to take combat into. This isn't a demand or even a suggestion, just hopefully a clean discussion.

 

So...

 

1. What do you think about having boons be more exclusive to classes?

We currently have 12 boons, and 9 classes in the game. Some boons were made more abundant for certain classes, like guards had a higher amount of retaliation, or stability, or aegis, etc. Certain boons should probably be kept and actually spread out a little to a general pool over all classes, such as stability, protection, resistance, and resolution. But overall this might be a way to cut down on the massive boon spamming for all boons in general from just one or two classes, and basically divide it down to how many of each class you bring. Obviously purity of purpose would need a tweak in this scenario, or just outright remove it, along with all the corruption that sparks this endless recycling, but I'm also looking to see if we can make all classes a little more important for groups.

 

I'm wondering for class diversity in big groups, if it would be better to have one boon be more exclusive to a class. We've seen some uproar over mirage getting alacrity, but what about if mesmers in general had the most access to alacrity? I'm not saying completely close off boons to classes, but just in general if they were the ones to apply one boon more than others. Now of course some boons are not as important as others, so some classes may get stuck with something that isn't good, but if a zerg wants to get those specific boons they would have to bring that class.

 

Builders might get something to play around with trying to figure out the best formation of boons to bring to a fight. Unfortunately what will also impact this is the application process hampered by the 5 target limit, so another question to go along this would be, would we also change the limits? If you have 40 people and you want 40 applications you will need 8 of that class, which still forces you to carry more of certain important classes. And then if you look at 10 player pve raids, something like swiftness probably isn't needed and so whatever class gets that might just get left out in the cold(maybe kitten swiftness to it from a trait) XD

 

But it could also force groups to stop running in one fat boon ball and instead return to the old days of having separate frontline tanks and backline bomb groups, where your frontlines would carry the five most important tanking boons, and your backline is filled with the most important dps boons. I'm not going to list what boons for whatever class, as I think a few of them should change with this scenario anyways, so some of the useless ones aren't as useless, but just want to discuss if the boon exclusivity like this would be good or not for the game.

 

 

2. What do you think about classes being masters over their boons, for application, and also removal?

So I also don't like how a couple classes are responsible for mass boon stripping/corruption in general. But what if these classes also had more control on stripping those specific boons of their class? It could be kind of a nightmare, since again some boons are way more important than others, so obviously you would want to bring more of those important boon classes to try and strip them from your enemy (and if you think stability remember I mentioned that stability should probably be in a general pool not in the class specific one). So if rangers are masters of fury, then only they would be the ones to mostly apply and strip it as an example. I'm also thinking maybe it could be as simple as attaching a trait to aoes that allows more application or removal of the class specific boons (yes I know rangers and thieves would basically get screwed in this, the fixes for that is different discussion lol).

 

In general I would like to see game play revolve around more straight application/stripping than the corruption/converting in the game.

 

Anyways thanks for reading, hopefully we can get some interesting discussions out of this.

 

[Redpawa.4108]

Changing who has access to boons will not change class diversity, it will just change which classes are chosen.
 

The classes that will be taken will provide Stability, Protection, and Might. If the class responsible for a boon is responsible for corrupting it, this change would even more heavily reinforce the new meta.

In addition you would now have to do a rework of Guardian, Necro, Revenant, Mesmer, Spellbreaker. What would the reward for reworking 4/9 of the classes in the game? An even more heavily entrenched meta (gamewide) and limiting design space. Additionally DPS classes in the meta will not change, AoE spam is king in blobs so don't expect necro or warrior to go anywhere.

[Redpawa.4108]

On a constructive note;

Excellent additions to WvW with the cantha ESpecs would be:
- High stability access.
- Boon removal + possibly boon corruption or Increasing the design space of Spellbreaker.
- High condi removal, to give another option other than scrapper. This is less needed than the other two.

[XenesisII.1540]

1 hour ago, Redpawa.4108 said:

On a constructive note;

Excellent additions to WvW with the cantha ESpecs would be:
- High stability access.
- Boon removal + possibly boon corruption or Increasing the design space of Spellbreaker.
- High condi removal, to give another option other than scrapper. This is less needed than the other two.

 

I agree with more stability access, and in fact a little surprised warriors weren't built more for this role as they were more of a frontline tank than guards. PoF was just so focus designed to make firebrands the full support, scourges the full corrupters, warriors the full area denial and strip, scrappers later to counter the corruptions, and the rest? take a hike. They need to spread the love  around move.

 

High condi removal was already there, ele's could compete with engs, it's just that purity of purpose overshadows them all. Who wouldn't want to get recycled boons instead of just cleansing conditions. I swear that talent threw such a curveball into the game pushing for full on boon balling, sure that existed before it, but it made it so much easier to do (and to think they nerfed chronos over basically the same thing of spamming boons). I still think conversion and corruption need to be toned down to slow down the recycle process.

 

We'll see I suppose what they bring next, just not sure I want to see another version of firebrand/scourge/scrapper on three other different classes and call it a day.

[God.2708]

Class diversity in a mid sized group is basically at its peak. That diversity decreases as groups grow in size speaks more to how leadership works. It's a common adage that a person can only keep track of/lead 4 to 7 other people. If you're a commander in charge of a 50 man group then, the best compromise you can make is to instead manage 4 to 7 'classes' (or builds). Reduce the players the commander is in charge of, and/or increase the amount of leadership involved and that can expand greatly.

I also don't think your solution will properly reinforce the direction you intend because of the target caps.  Target caps are a topic for another discussion, but so long as 5 person caps exist, dividing roles/boons up like that is simply going to result in people min maxing which 5 are the most important and then repeating it. IE fractal party compositions.

I also don't really think separate group identities is a class skill/balance issue. The tools are all there. I actively run a group that alternates between being a melee shock party (yes, 5), ranged cleave party, and pick party, and find success with all of them when operating with another group and/or cloud that behaves like a 'frontline' (or more rarely a backline).

Groups simply need an actual motivation to explore those behaviors, and the motivation doesn't exist at the moment. People simply want to hop on and fight X with their friends where X is your choice of thing that you consistently find victory over so your ego isn't hurt. So long as people can pick whatever X and there's no consequences, groups aren't going to actually actively compete with one another, and so won't explore coordinating to try to be more effective.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

i'm ok with classes being the primary output for boons, but at least a few other options should exist so every class isn't pigeon holed into playing the same role/ build for years straight. imagine your commander expecting you to play guard support every night... night after night. yeah nah that makes for some bloody stale gameplay.

[Junkpile.7439]

Just remove boon sharing. So fed up this game.

Edited August 3, 2021 by Junkpile.7439

[Whiteout.1975]

I think if things are more exclusive to particular classes, "boons" in this case, one achieves diversity on paper . . . But in actuality there becomes a heavy influence something called "Pick Rate" in gaming. The things seen as most viable are chosen over the lesser by players. Also, if things are as one may say, "to good not to take!," then stacking of such quality of things can more easily occur.

 

- In short, I do not believe believe particular classes having dominance over particular boons will not be a healthy change for combat because of higher influences on pick rate.

 

Generally speaking, I believe skills that have a higher influence on number of targets should be less powerful than skills that are more focused on single or fewer targets. So skills that affect a higher amount, with boons, are less effective in application then that of concentrated/single target skills.

 

Nice topic btw 👍

 

Edit: had to add an important word that got left out . . . lol

Edited August 4, 2021 by Whiteout.1975

[joneirikb.7506]

I'm on my way to bed, so no walls of text. Just spitballing some ideas:
 

1: Think I suggested once in the past, the idea that classes can gain several boons (X) that they can apply to themselves, and have a specific boon (Y) that only they can apply to others. And mix in a couple (like Swiftness and might) to a common pool that is available to everyone (Z).

Might keep combo fields outside of that, so people would get more interested in using them.

2: Been toying with the idea of removing existing boon corruption/removal, and isntead roll it into a system where specific boons and condis negate each others. Haven't really thought too much about the vs table, but say Might and Weakness oppose each others. So if the enemy has might, and you apply Weakness, it removes the might. You apply Weakness again and the enemy actually gains weakness. Then enemy uses a skill to gain might and it removes the weakness instead, etc.

Probably too big a change to be implemented, probabl something that would need to have been designed in from the start to balance around. 

Zzz...

[DanAlcedo.3281]

The only boon focused role we need more of is the Stab bot. 

 

Guardian had the monopoly over it since launch. 

 

However, you can't just give Stab to a dps class as that would mean we can easily double up. 

 

We simply need more classes that can fit the support role without being outclassed by Firebrand/Scrapper. 

 

Give Tempest the ability to grant Stab on aura. It would still not be enough to make tempest S Tier like Firebrand is but it's a start. 

 

 

Edited August 4, 2021 by DanAlcedo.3281

[Ronin.4501]

Personally I'd much rather see some sort of boon allotment control.  In other words, your toon can only have a maximum of 3-4 boons on it at once*.  So you'd actually have to pay attention to which boons you (and your party) pop at any given time.  Sure, that would require some semblance of skill, and Anet seems to always focus on the lowest skill players when they make changes/updates to classes, but the amount of boons certain classes can generate at this point has become utterly ridiculous.

 

*and boons would no longer be applied to allies outside of group/squad.

 

Oh, btw, have you heard the latest rumor?  The new rev spec in EoD will give them stealth.  Because this game-mode needs more stealth. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

Game over man, game over.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Ronin.4501

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, Ronin.4501 said:

Personally I'd much rather see some sort of boon allotment control.  In other words, your toon can only have a maximum of 3-4 boons on it at once*.

Or even simpler - just removing boon and skill stacking. 

[XenesisII.1540]

3 hours ago, Whiteout.1975 said:

I think if things are more exclusive to particular classes, "boons" in this case, one achieves diversity on paper . . . But in actuality there becomes a heavy influence something called "Pick Rate" in gaming. The things seen as most viable are chosen over the lesser by players. Also, if things are as one may say, "to good not to take!," then stacking of such quality of things can more easily occur.

 

- In short, I do not believe believe particular classes having dominance over particular boons will not be a healthy change for combat because of higher influences on pick rate.

 

Generally speaking, I believe skills that have a higher influence on number of targets should be less powerful than skills that are more focused on single or fewer targets. So skills that affect a higher amount, with boons, are less effective in application then that of concentrated/single target skills.

 

Nice topic btw 👍

 

Edit: had to add an important word that got left out . . . lol

Thanks for the reply.

 

Yeah the bad part about it is that boons are not all equal, so unfortunately it could/would still lead to boon stacking certain boons therefore certain classes, unless of course they improve those weaker boons, or they become much more situational, for example what if they made swiftness add a burst of super speed for it's master class? What if regeneration tacks on a small extra burst heal or a sand shield?, etc.

 

 

1 hour ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

I'm on my way to bed, so no walls of text. Just spitballing some ideas:
 

1: Think I suggested once in the past, the idea that classes can gain several boons (X) that they can apply to themselves, and have a specific boon (Y) that only they can apply to others. And mix in a couple (like Swiftness and might) to a common pool that is available to everyone (Z).

Might keep combo fields outside of that, so people would get more interested in using them.

2: Been toying with the idea of removing existing boon corruption/removal, and isntead roll it into a system where specific boons and condis negate each others. Haven't really thought too much about the vs table, but say Might and Weakness oppose each others. So if the enemy has might, and you apply Weakness, it removes the might. You apply Weakness again and the enemy actually gains weakness. Then enemy uses a skill to gain might and it removes the weakness instead, etc.

Probably too big a change to be implemented, probabl something that would need to have been designed in from the start to balance around. 

Zzz...

 

I wish they had kept combo fields as the main source of healing and boons, I understand why they made the change to the boon spam system, but it's unfortunate it ended up kinda being brain dead game play.

 

Interesting thought with your first idea. You could also have it as a better version cast on yourself, and weaker version cast out to others. So for example stand your ground cast 5 stacks of stability, so that would hit the guard with full stacks, but then maybe have only 3 stacks hit the rest of the group.

 

On your second idea, it's also interesting, and bringing the fight between boons and conditions on a more 1 to 1 setting. It actually would also allow for more customized building, so for example lets say I wanted to target regeneration I could stack poison (lets say thief bow build) to mass wipe them from groups. Obviously cannot do this for every boon, because something like protection doesn't stack, just gets longer duration, unless let's say make vulnerability take off a certain amount of duration, so every hit would  drops 1sec off protection.

 

Speaking of which I'm surprised they haven't made a condition to reduce boon durations every second, but I suppose it doesn't matter since conditions get cleansed so fast anyways.

 

I'm not even worried about reworking stuff or changing the system, this is just a spitball discussion, I fully don't expect anything like these to ever happen and the game to continue on with what's normal right now.

 

Good night.

 

1 hour ago, Ronin.4501 said:

Personally I'd much rather see some sort of boon allotment control.  In other words, your toon can only have a maximum of 3-4 boons on it at once*.  So you'd actually have to pay attention to which boons you (and your party) pop at any given time.  Sure, that would require some semblance of skill, and Anet seems to always focus on the lowest skill players when they make changes/updates to classes, but the amount of boons certain classes can generate at this point has become utterly ridiculous.

 

*and boons would no longer be applied to allies outside of group/squad.

 

Oh, btw, have you heard the latest rumor?  The new rev spec in EoD will give them stealth.  Because this game-mode needs more stealth. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

Game over man, game over.

 

Hm, this is also an interesting idea. Although then you get into the situations were boons may write overwrite others at the most inappropriate times, even from those in your group. Imagine suddenly losing your stability or protection in the middle of a push for a regeneration or swiftness. 😆

I suppose with this idea you would definitely have to tone down the amount of boons you can pop off one skill at a time, to make the situation more controllable.

 

What?! Rev with stealth? seriously? you know what at this point they might as well just give it to every kitten class!

No class in pve needs stealth, so it's obviously being done for pvp. We don't need more stealth in the game jfc.

[Sviel.7493]

I agree to the extent that boons are far too important right now for how invisible they are.  They get vomited out left and right and the existence of a specific boon can drastically alter a fight, but it's also impossible to tell at a glance what someone does or doesn't have.  There is no way for a fast-paced, action combat system to work when such critical information is not readily available.  On top of that, even if the clarity issues were resolved, I don't think boons actually make said combat more fun.

Thus, restricting the number of boons in play by restricting them to certain classes would help in PvE (which is more or less how it's done there for enemies), but isn't all that helpful in mass PvP as it only takes a handful of classes to once again reach boon overload.

I think any solution will have to go the route of drastically reducing boon uptime while also improving boon clarity.  If boons are going to be integral to combat, they must have a clear, significant and short-lived effect.  While it may be feasible to maintain high uptime by greatly restricting permissible zerg classes, this should naturally be remedied as a mono-zerg should have clear weaknesses.

[Fatal.1347]

Before you applied boons when they were needed. Even herald somewhat followed this rule with high energy upkeep on his elite facet. Superspeed as strongest buff was rare but amazing.

Then came PoF and you don't need to pay any attention to stab, might, prot and regen upkeep unless being stripped as it is baseline that they're up. Superspeed is also abundant now.

Counter to this is the fact was that much more boons are removed now: nightfall and spite trait changes for reaper, scepter 3, introduction of spellbreaker and scourge.

If you add infinite amount of boons and boon removal, the game just becomes a "ball fiesta", there is absolutely no other way to play the game than follow up on the boon removal ball as the only time players won't have boons is when they're being corrupted.

They ruined having variety of skills in WvW. It is fine to have high sustain and boons when necessary, but cooldowns are too short and buff durations too long. This is partly due to minstrel gear but also because broken spec. They need to tune down buff durations of low cooldown skills and nerf concetration stat or increase cooldowns of most impactful aoe boon abilities.

What they need to do:
- Big nerf or removal of minstrel gear in WvW. Either tune down concentration stat in WvW or add multiamulet system (better than PvP) that doesn't have minstrel (or trailblazer).

- Increase of cooldown to short cooldown AoE skills in WvW. This means scourge barriers and boon removals. Firebrand mace 3, staff 2 and mantras. Also spellbreaker needs some boon removal nerfs and scrapper some superspeed. In return the skills can be little bit stronger but not too much. It is fine to bomb or sustain every 10 seconds, but it shouldn't be from same skills or player.

TLDR; Increase cooldown of short cooldown AoE skills in WvW such as firebrand mantras, scrapper superspeed and scourge barriers/boon removals. Nerf minstrel stat to ground.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Fatal.1347

[displayname.8315]

Groups like that also like to run a bunch of near invisible rev hammer range bombs, spam 1 on their mortar kits, pirate ship against pugs, try to chain pull with their mesmers.

 

I get it and all, it's easy and their baddies don't have to eat it when they actually try going deep.  Then they can charge in after their 15th Mesmer pull and good feels are had.

[Whiteout.1975]

12 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Thanks for the reply.

 

Yeah the bad part about it is that boons are not all equal, so unfortunately it could/would still lead to boon stacking certain boons therefore certain classes, unless of course they improve those weaker boons, or they become much more situational, for example what if they made swiftness add a burst of super speed for it's master class? What if regeneration tacks on a small extra burst heal or a sand shield?, etc.

 Sure thing.

 

Yea, making boons so that they are on an equal playing field, or at least mostly perceived that way, would make the element of choice more difficult indeed. So that idea would be good for that purpose. The only issue I can see right now is that we may very well end up where we started concerning current thoughts/feelings of the influence of boons.

 

- For instance, in this case, whoever deals out boons more effectively than others, may have changed. However, the effectiveness of said boons has not, ultimately. Instead, boons have now become more effective around each class that excels at their respective boon(s) and how those boons may support other professions more effectively too.

 

Honestly, this leads more to believe the issue is the amount of stacking of boons . . . AND/OR the effectiveness of some boons baseline. We can both agree that boons are currently not considered equal. 

 

- How I would approach this issue: First, bring down the stacks of effectiveness for boons in general (this can include stacks in duration). This change will limit the stacking/carrying potential of groups while also helping with the boon -> condition conversion. Then, I would look at seeing if the effectiveness of particular boons needs adjusting. For example, maybe Might need to give +15 Power/Condition for every "1" stack instead of the currently + 30.

 

I do not know the exact answer, of course, any more than the Dev/Company that has not run their game through QA for testing. However, this general approach I have previously listed would be something I would like to see.

[joneirikb.7506]

14 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

I wish they had kept combo fields as the main source of healing and boons, I understand why they made the change to the boon spam system, but it's unfortunate it ended up kinda being brain dead game play.

 

Interesting thought with your first idea. You could also have it as a better version cast on yourself, and weaker version cast out to others. So for example stand your ground cast 5 stacks of stability, so that would hit the guard with full stacks, but then maybe have only 3 stacks hit the rest of the group.

 

On your second idea, it's also interesting, and bringing the fight between boons and conditions on a more 1 to 1 setting. It actually would also allow for more customized building, so for example lets say I wanted to target regeneration I could stack poison (lets say thief bow build) to mass wipe them from groups. Obviously cannot do this for every boon, because something like protection doesn't stack, just gets longer duration, unless let's say make vulnerability take off a certain amount of duration, so every hit would  drops 1sec off protection.

 

Speaking of which I'm surprised they haven't made a condition to reduce boon durations every second, but I suppose it doesn't matter since conditions get cleansed so fast anyways.

 

I'm not even worried about reworking stuff or changing the system, this is just a spitball discussion, I fully don't expect anything like these to ever happen and the game to continue on with what's normal right now.

 

Good night.

Well to further go down that rabbit hole: I guess they could change Protection over to a stacking system, where each stack adds a +1% damage reduction or something, max out at 33% current. Would actually make it harder to stack up the strong boon in the first place. That way whatever counter-condi would remove 1 stack and reduce the protection. (But sounds like way too much work for ANet to actually do).

Moving over to a counter condi/boon system, it could actually be possible to make 4 classes give the most important boons, and have 4 other classes bring the condi to remove those. (Well, guess ranger and thief would still struggle mostly due to weapon selections more than anything else).

[Gotejjeken.1267]

I'm not even sure its boons really...

 

Just remove the gear that adds to the issue like trailblazer, marauder, etc.  As full disclosure I have builds that use both of those as well, and only use them because that's how you play WvW.  It's not great design at all because it just leads to way too much survivability for no downside cost.  

 

If you had to run glassy to utilize protection or something then it would feel better to fight against.  I guess boon spam is still an issue but spreading out removal to more classes could alleviate that.  

[ArchonWing.9480]

Well, I think we could nerf boon prestacking outside of combat or reduce duration OOC. Currently it's incredibly boring to see any group refuse to enter combat until all their boons are neatly in place or they just run away. Even in organized fights, it's a matter of how strikes first with all their crap up. Pretty boring if you ask me.

 

Note that they've actually started to do this by capping the duration of boons, but they could go further.

 

Although boons aren't the problem. The reason why thief, ranger, and (to a lesser extent) Mesmer outside of utilitybotting  were not meta was because most of their good damage is single target. And this was true in Vanilla before boons were so common. Even Soulbeast today, which actually does do quite a bit isn't as valued because it lacks flexibility  in pirate ship scenarios.   (But become much better with a group that knows how to push). But at the end of the day, the meta supports just provide too much.

 

Necros were a selfish class until scourge and they've always been in the center of the meta no matter what because they have access to multiple ground targeted AOEs, and naturally this got even more highlighted with scourges.  Classes that rely on projectiles are also regarded as pretty useless due to reflects. The other big damage dealers, namely, power dragon hunter and herald also do a lot of unreflectable damage that is almost impossible to avoid.

 

Although with the removal of Retal, I think Eles are a strong damage option; maybe people will realize it eventually.

 

If you wanted me to pick on boons, I would probably point out might and protection. Might is 25-30% attack boost for most, and one thing that's really understated, is that it's an even larger boost for minstrel classes which actually does cause them to do a bit of damage when they really shouldn't be doing any. I mean it's basically upping a Minstrel class to Cele damage, and a Cele damage to Marauder. In the end, 30 wet noodles will kill you regardless, except these wet noodles are also slightly being sharpened a little.

Edited August 4, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Ronin.4501]

17 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Or even simpler - just removing boon and skill stacking. 

I'd be all for this as well, but you know the WvW community-at-large would lose their minds over such a thing.

 

But boons have basically made large-scale fights so boring I don't even want to take part in them much anymore...and as for small-scale fights, it feels like 75% of the players rely on their boons in place of skill, and the 20-25% who are skilled take advantage of those same boons to become almost invincible.

[Ronin.4501]

17 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Hm, this is also an interesting idea. Although then you get into the situations were boons may write overwrite others at the most inappropriate times, even from those in your group. Imagine suddenly losing your stability or protection in the middle of a push for a regeneration or swiftness. 😆

I suppose with this idea you would definitely have to tone down the amount of boons you can pop off one skill at a time, to make the situation more controllable.

 

What?! Rev with stealth? seriously? you know what at this point they might as well just give it to every kitten class!

No class in pve needs stealth, so it's obviously being done for pvp. We don't need more stealth in the game jfc.

 

Yeah, they'd definitely need to rework the boon system as well as traits that give passive boons and skills that give them as well to give the players some semblance of control over when the boons were used, but as I said in my response to Dawdler.8521, boons have made large-scale fights so boring they're almost not even worth taking part in anymore...and in small-scale fights some classes can generate so many boons at once or certain boons on an almost endless rotation that a skilled player becomes almost invincible.

 

The problem as I see it is the devs for PvE implement a lot of skills/traits/builds with NO THOUGHT WHATSOEVER for how it will affect the other game-modes.  At times I truly sympathize with the WvW/SPvP devs.  It's akin to a college fraternity throwing a massive house party, completely trashing the house, and then turning to 1-2 pledges the next morning and saying, "Here. You clean this up!"

 

As for the rev stealth, here's the link:  (scroll down the Thornwolf.9721's comment on the first page).

 

Edited August 4, 2021 by Ronin.4501

[subversiontwo.7501]

 

On 8/4/2021 at 12:41 AM, God.2708 said:

Class diversity in a mid sized group is basically at its peak. That diversity decreases as groups grow in size speaks more to how leadership works. It's a common adage that a person can only keep track of/lead 4 to 7 other people. If you're a commander in charge of a 50 man group then, the best compromise you can make is to instead manage 4 to 7 'classes' (or builds). Reduce the players the commander is in charge of, and/or increase the amount of leadership involved and that can expand greatly.

I also don't think your solution will properly reinforce the direction you intend because of the target caps.  Target caps are a topic for another discussion, but so long as 5 person caps exist, dividing roles/boons up like that is simply going to result in people min maxing which 5 are the most important and then repeating it. IE fractal party compositions.

I also don't really think separate group identities is a class skill/balance issue. The tools are all there. I actively run a group that alternates between being a melee shock party (yes, 5), ranged cleave party, and pick party, and find success with all of them when operating with another group and/or cloud that behaves like a 'frontline' (or more rarely a backline).

Groups simply need an actual motivation to explore those behaviors, and the motivation doesn't exist at the moment. People simply want to hop on and fight X with their friends where X is your choice of thing that you consistently find victory over so your ego isn't hurt. So long as people can pick whatever X and there's no consequences, groups aren't going to actually actively compete with one another, and so won't explore coordinating to try to be more effective.

These are all excellent points. I logged into this thread to post something similar but then I saw that you had essentially made them all one by one: from the "meta" point (that meta is about ease of organisation), to the "possibility" point (that we've come a long way from the melee/range/focus meta of vanilla but that adaptions of it is still true) or the related "expectation" point of commanders somewhat rightfully assuming that players are more likely unable to do something extra asked of them than able.

 

Spoiler

Much of that is why you generally don't see people build a party around things like a Core-Guard + Soulbeast combo for one FB they may be short. Whoever leads or Lt's a group either do not want to deal with that extra organisation or they simply do not expect the players turning up on those two builds to be able to communicate and apply effectively to compensate. One of the largest yet often overlooked upsides to FB's in groups is that the tag usually is an FB him- or herself. All related calls can be called as you do them, all cooldowns will synch and following it can be done by simply replicating it. More would be expected out of a pairing that take on such a role 50/50. They can't be told or follow, they have to know and adapt.

Rangers in general are known to be in a dire spot in meta pickup groups, right? Yet at the same time, how often do you have a Ranger pop onto coms, ask the commander to put a squad marker on them and send all the Weavers to that party, to lead a subgroup a channel down on coms and optimizing coms for it? It's far more likely that both the Ranger and the Weavers will be whining for a party with FB stab, not be on coms or have their mics turned off so they can't help the tag in that fashion. In contrast, we struggle to just have people use their mics these days.

 

On 8/3/2021 at 9:06 PM, XenesisII.1540 said:

Boon balls, it exist, I have my problems with it, on how it highly affects groups from pugs to hardcores, with it's stacking and how conditions are dealt with and recycled.

In general I would like to see game play revolve around more straight application/stripping than the corruption/converting in the game.

 

 

I think it is important to point out that these two statements can exist at the same time, yet be entirely unrelated and either-or legitimate.

 

Similar to @God.2708: One of the little projects I've had this year was to take on a group of relatively new players in a guild. One of the things we taught them in that guild was how to synch up Revenant Hammer abilities. Suffice to say, none of them has ever complained about the tanks or boon maintenence of other groups. They learnt pretty quickly that some big attacks still have devastating damage if you can focus and coordinate as a party. They also learnt that you do not have to keep opposing boons low, you only need to take key boons at key moments to optimize application.

 

With that in mind, the idea of these ever bullying "boon balls" is very often more so a case of players who play alone or "play alone together" having issues dealing sufficient damage to groups with coordinated defenses. It's, again, not a question of what is possible or balanced in theory, but rather that players complain about their own shortcommings. Such a balance being a thing is not a defect, it's intended and part of the balance. It's not a question of small-large scale either. You don't even need a full party to drastically improve your chances of being impactful within a large scale environment. You just need some friends, capable of focus and coordination.

At the same time, what @XenesisII.1540 describes towards the end there reminds me of vanilla and think that is a fair point to make. Forget the "invincible boon ball" because that is not a good argument for anyone who has ever played in a coordinated party. However, that the game is still quite spammy in both boons, conditions and conversions back and forth, is a good and solid enough point to make on its own.

 

The pre-raid balance of things like stability was- and still is superior to what we have. That is essentially what you describe with saying that you want straight application and removal over fewer sources. The same goes for the design of things like confusion. PvP (including WvW) still pays for the design decisions made to accomodate PvE raids to this day. They pretty much threw out their entire pre-existing game to fit the balance of raids in and made it the foundation of all balance. Even after the splits, PvP is just slowly being readressed from the fundamental raid balance point. That is still true right now.

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501
You should really click that link, it's the principal designer of the combat system talking about how and why it was built for 4mins

[Strider Pj.2193]

Not aware enough of how things could benefit for changes in this, but I wanted to comment that it’s really great to see a constructive discussion that hasn’t devolved into young kitten stuff.  
 

Great topic @XenesisII.1540 et al, and will keep following this one.  

[XenesisII.1540]

33 minutes ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

With that in mind, the idea of these ever bullying "boon balls" is very often more so a case of players who play alone or "play alone together" having issues dealing sufficient damage to groups with coordinated defenses. It's, again, not a question of what is possible or balanced in theory, but rather that players complain about their own shortcommings. Such a balance being a thing is not a defect, it's intended and part of the balance. It's not a question or small- or large scale either. You don't even need a full party to drastically improve your chances of being impactful within a large scale environment. You just need some friends, capable of focus and coordination.

At the same time, what @XenesisII.1540 describe towards the end there reminds me of vanilla and think that is a fair point to make. Forget the "invincible boon ball" because that is not a good argument for anyone who has ever played in a coordinated party. However, that the game is still quite spammy in both boons, conditions and conversions back and forth, is a good and solid enough point to make on its own.

 

The pre-raid balance of things like stability was- and still is superior to what we have. That is essentially what you describe with saying that you want straight application and removal over fewer sources. The same goes for the design of things like confusion. PvP (including WvW) still pays for the design decisions made to accomodate PvE raids to this day. They pretty much threw out their entire pre-existing game to fit the balance of raids in and made it the foundation of everything.

 

 

To be honest, I don't have an absolute hate for boon balling, I think it's kinda ok in smaller groups where it's much more manageable, and even in 20-25 sized groups, it's just when it gets to a certain size like 35-50 it becomes overwhelmingly good and hard to tackle without a similar group or bigger group, which granted this size of organization isn't around as much these days.

 

This is the type of group that can over run an entire map with little resistance, it's not even the same 35-50 sized groups like back in the day, front and back line, and where adding people could became more disorganized and harder to maintain sustainability, it's the opposite now of just adding more support spamming and instantly makes the entire ball better, it makes it easier to cover mistakes.

 

Thank you guys for the great discussion so far, I'll read through the rest later and reply when I can, but I wanna play wvw tonight. 😁