Powercreep vs Progress whats the difference?

[Genesis.5169]

I think the PvP community needs to have a dialogue about this. I can only talk about my personal views I am hoping other will give theirs.

 

I find that the addition of HoT elites and PoF elites are the natural progression of an mmo, new things must be added and must be better in some way to entice people to play them. But i see other's considering HoT and PoF as powercreep instead of additions of content. I see lots of opinions saying those expansions ruined pvp but during both those expansions we had far more viable builds in rotation in pvp then we do now and sure it was far less forgiving but you generally got to play what you wanted and were able to succeed with the right stat allocation.

 

So yeah, you guys have the floor.

What is the difference between powercreep and progress?

Is there a difference to begin with?

And what does it mean to you guys to reverse powercreep?

And how would you guys add content with out adding powercreep?

Edited August 5, 2021 by Genesis.5169
Typo's

[Sunshine.5014]

You're confused between horizontal progress and vertical progress.

 

Farming games like Wow has vertical progress. Things released later will be stronger than the old things. Overall, even when the game was released a long time ago, there is only a couple ways to play, since the new ones always deprecate the old ways. It's pretty boring tbh. Gear and spec treadmill.

 

Gw2 has horizontal progress. It provides more options, more play styles, but not strictly a replacement.

 

Now that you understand the "progression" part, you can see that it's simple: gw2 players don't want powercreep. And that has nothing to do with people don't like progression. They like Horizontal Progression instead of the terrible Vertical Progression.

[Eddbopkins.2630]

To me "power creep" means it makes past biulds and play styles obsolete because what was changed is better to the point of it being to strong.

 

Progess is when there is consistant updates/balance

/ and meta changing at a regular process/interval of time, allowing for a different experiance/meta each season.

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by Eddbopkins.2630

[Downstate.4697]

Its them making elite specs op then nerfing core traitlines to.make them weaker. Now core classes are worse than base game.

[Bazsi.2734]

There isn't supposed to be powercreep. E-specs just give more options, variations on the basic design of the class.
 

The problem with their balancing is mostly that numbers seem to be incredibly hard for them. Like they released PoF elite specs in a state where they could do double/triple DPS compared to HoT or core variants, and what was so evident on raid benchmarks also carried over to PvP... since PoF release PvP is basicly a sh*tshow, and there were next to no manpower/work hours allocated to fix it.
After 3+ years the devs started something that accumulated in the 2020 february patch, but when the Icebrood Saga was axed and EoD development started, they dropped it and left PvP mid-rework and we live in this beta-test version for like 18 months now.
So yes there is absolutely powercreep, but it's hardly relevant for the gamemode because it's already dead due to years of neglect.

EoD release will revitalise it somewhat, we'll see if they attempt to fix it around that time. Reworks for the passive traits, phasing damage back onto some CC, actual PvP only reward system... man they have a lot to fix before the powercreep becomes the main problem.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Bazsi.2734

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Power creep is the consequence of careless design. I would strongly argue that if you want to keep combat feeling fair and interactive then the vast majority of skills should only be 1 of instant cast, aoe, or range. This is one of the simplest design philosophies you can follow that ensures skills dont get bloated with too many effects. Of course there are cases where you can have more than 1 and still be balanced, like meteor shower, but only if you add additional negatives or counterplay options like stationary channeling.

 

If you look at gw2 skills there are so many that have 2 or more of these factors as well as additional effects like boon corrupt, unblockable, pulsing effects, condi application, etc. The same applies to defensive skills. Attacks that also have built in blocks or evades and defensive skills that can be instantly activated and allow you to attack while they are active are far too common.

 

Its not surprising that classes with these kinds of skills have been meta for years now. Engi, rev, guard, necro have always been the biggest problems because they have the most power crept design. Its very possible to have progress in your game without power creep. Its just far easier to ignore it.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

It's all about volume and degree.  If the professions are doing a lot more simultaneous things, or if they're doing the same thing but a whole lot more of it, then it is power creep.  I'll use mesmer as an example of both:

 

Chronomancer: When they were first dropped, they added a 5th shatter to use in addition to their standard 4.  They also gave chronos alacrity and better quickness options, alongside of a very powerful clone generation trait.  This meant that chronomancers could do a whole lot more things (volume) than basic mesmer could.

 

Mirage:  The mirage, by comparison, does very little new.  The mirage cloak is just a minor distortion in lieu of a regular dodge, and the utilities are all more movement skills.  That's not much different from what regular mesmer has.  But, mirage took it to an insane degree.  At-launch mirage was nigh invulnerable.  Either you couldn't catch them, and if you did you couldn't damage them due to all of the evades that they had access to (degree).

 

This is a problem that isn't easily solved.  The reason why Anet is introducing special core-exclusive mechanics is to try and combat this.  That way, the elite specs take something away in exchange for doing new things or the same things better.  

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Powers creep for me:

 

2012. Ability X does 1 thing. 

2013. Ability X does 1 thing but better. 

2014. Ability X does 2 things now. 

2015. Ability X gets CD and Casttime reduced. 

2016. Ability X does 3 things now. 

Etc.. 

 

 

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

Progress is when you get more tools to accomplish the same task.
Powercreep is when new tools are capable of doing more stuff than older ones or even fully finish the task without the need of users input.

[RedAvenged.5217]

The problem rn is a few things being vastly stronger than the rest.

 

we already eliminated power creep by replacing a lot of bursty passives with similar but less bursty versions.

 

the problem atm is the balance after that. We giga nerfed “powercreep “ by nuking a bunch of stuff that could’ve been simply slightly adjusted and leaving the rest shut.

 

now we’ve been fixing only a vast minority of things that got a few complaints to literally trash teir, now the other busted stuff shows and now anet won’t fix those.

 

maybe it’s the players that are the problem for hating this op kitten, but I think most just didn’t want it in the first place

[Cynz.9437]

Progress: classes got access to new weapons giving classes also access to new roles, e.g. ranger can play support now as druid.

 

Powercreep: condition application wasn't strong enough -> condition application got buffed as well as condi damage and traits -> people insta died to condi -> more ways to cleanse and mitigate condi were introduced (instead of addressing some overperforming condi application spells/traits) -> condi wasn't as impactful anymore -> more condi application ways were added and more aoe and more passives -> more ways to deal with condi were added -> rinse and repeat... until this game is nothing more than bunch of bunkers (because anything squishy can't even get close enough to this crap) running around vomitting aoe on point and hoping their condi and boon corrupt tick faster.

 

Or even simpler example of powercreep (and p2w at this point): especs are straight upgrade to core in most cases. E-specs are not alternative to core (as they should have been and promised to be), core can't compete in most cases. Even worse, core got shafted a lot of time because of e-specs overperforming.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Cynz.9437

[Guirssane.7082]

11 hours ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

Its them making elite specs op then nerfing core traitlines to.make them weaker. Now core classes are worse than base game.

That's true for every class except guardian 😄 where core is just better (core GS beats DH everyday btw) and support core is broken. But ye for every other classes the E-specs are just better

[DanAlcedo.3281]

23 minutes ago, Guirssane.7082 said:

That's true for every class except guardian 😄 where core is just better (core GS beats DH everyday btw) and support core is broken. But ye for every other classes the E-specs are just better

Core Guardian feels like a well oiled machine while other core classes feel like a machine build with parts that were never intended to be used together. 

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

Nobody really like's my take on this, but basically "the power-level" or what people think of as perfect balance doesn't exist...that the game is always going to be in a state of power-creep or power-dip, because numerical differences between classes and skills are all relative. The only way to have a true power level...or perfect balance is to destroy diversity and completely homogenize the game (which is stupid).

 

In addition, because of the sheer complexity of the game, skills are highly intercorrelated with huge sets of other skills, and thus when things are changed, it's impossible to predict the outcome of that change. Thus changes to numbers on skills don't do anything of true meaning.

 

What i found is that the only thing that actually matters...or has any real meaning is progress. Progress is basically what diversity and balance are. These two concepts are not static things, but dynamic in that they change over time. You have a pool of skills, we go through them and perform computations, until we arrive at an answer for which skill in this pool of skills is the best skill...so we go from highly diverse, to homogenous through a process of computation...that process is dependent on the complexity of the game. The more complex the game, the longer it takes to make these computations, the more time is spent exploring the game in a highly diverse state....this is what progression is...an exploration of the skills in the game and how they behave with other skills to try and find the best arrangement of skills. 

 

This is why expansions in itself are good...they provide additional complexity to the game that extends this computation time, and  you will experience the most diversity the game will ever have in the first few weeks of the expansions release...over-time as computations are made, this diversity will slowly develop into a meta and the meta will become more and more homogenous as we continue to make more and more elaborate and more efficient computations to the elements in the game.

 

Complexity in itself is a topic I don't like to talk about, but it's impossible to not bring it up in discussion because it's like talking about particle physics without talking about the standard model...complexity is the reason for why, and how fast the meta emerges...and it's the complexity that will determine just how bad the diversity is going to be 6 months out into the future.

 

 

Edited August 6, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Guirssane.7082]

Let's take some example of some of the best pvp balance in mmorpg :

-Daoc

- Wow MOP (latest patch xD) 

- Gw1

- Warhammer online

- Shadowbane

 

What do they all have in common? 

-Holy trinity

-Lots of mirrored spell, simple design

-Not the kittening complexity of class design that gw2 has

 

Gw2 won't ever be balanced, they made the class design too complicated, with the number of spells, specs, traits, gear, rune. The good point is that classes truly feels unique but the balance is affected by it. Also holy trinity system has been the most balanced design for a reason. 

 

So ye don't expect gw2 to ever feel balanced, appreciate it like it is cause it's an impossible job due to its core design imo.

 

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

2 hours ago, Guirssane.7082 said:

-Not the kittening complexity of class design that gw2 has

 

Gw2 won't ever be balanced, they made the class design too complicated, with the number of spells, specs, traits, gear, rune. The good point is that classes truly feels unique but the balance is affected by it. Also holy trinity system has been the most balanced design for a reason. 

 

So ye don't expect gw2 to ever feel balanced, appreciate it like it is cause it's an impossible job due to its core design imo.

 

 

Let me be really clear because I don't want anyone to take away any kind of false impression when I bring up things like complexity.

 

Complexity is not a bad thing. It is a good thing.

 

However...it's a very nuanced...something that not only a has more precise definition but even it's own field of study in order to understand what it means when something is complex, and whether that complexity is good or bad. It's a huge rabbit hole, so I'm gonna try not to talk too much about it....but It has to deal with the number of things, and the level of connection those things have to other things.

 

You have a bunch of Pokémon cards and you throw them in a box. You start picking out cards at random to create a deck. The deck you created can then be played in a large number of possible sequences, against a large number of other possible sequences. Compare this to having instead of Pokémon cards, you had instead a bunch of flat stones in the box. You start picking out stones. They all look the same so how many different sequences can you make here? The complexity between a system of similar rocks, and heterogenous Pokémon cards, is really...the deciding factor for how much fun either game is going to be.

 

The complexity of these systems comes from not only the things themselves. but also the arrangements...configurations and connections these things have among each other.

 

The above isn't obvious, and it's the reason why simply having a large number of things existing in a system doesn't make it a complex system, it is also the relationships those things have with each other that make it complex. This is what we colloquially associate as something being "too complicated"... a game that has too many skills that don't strongly interact with other skills, is an overly complicated game. 

 

What matters seems to be this more higher level abstract "thing" that we can only call complexity.

 

It goes beyond this notion too, because it involves concepts dealing with computation, and computation time. Think about it like this: Compare two rocks...how much time does that take? Contrast this, by comparing two Pokémon cards...how much time does that take? Your essentially comparing two things to answer some question (making a computation), and the level of computation required to answer that question takes some finite time. The simplicity or complexity of the computation is involved in this way with the evolution of the game...If you have to compare millions of things, in a million different arrangements and each computation you do takes a week to arrive at a definite answer, then you will be exploring the space of possibilities on the order of 19 billion years.

 

So, sorry about the wall of text here, I just wanted to clarify what I'm saying to avoid confusion or obstruction on anything i bring up about the topic. Complexity is a word that has syntactic baggage, so I just want to be careful with how it's being used. 

 

 

Edited August 6, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684