Guild Wars 2

Changing the way skills work to benefit pve will just screw over pvp. And as people have previously stated, they are connected. Anet doesn’t want to separate them. It’s better to change the way pve works. Pve needs a complete overhaul. Things like defiant on mobs make cc pretty much useless in pve whereas it’s insanely overpowered already in pvp. Cant change that so it’s more effective in pve, cuz it will jsut be even more overpowered than it already is in pvp. Same can be said of conditions. Useless in pve, but stupidly OP in pvp. The way mobs and bosses act in pve is just very poorly designed in general. To me, pve always seemed kind of rushed and not well thought out considering how alot of the profession skills work.

^ PvP and PvE are already separated by stats. From the way confusion is calculated to the damage done by Cloak and Dagger, you’ll find differences in quite a few places.

So no one in this thread who is against skill splits gets miffed when their favorite profession gets nerfed due to balancing that has nothing to do with them? Why should my efficiency go down because of PvP, which I have no interest in?

In GW1 PvE if a skill wasn’t split, it usually wasn’t a gigantic deal because each profession combo had loads of useful builds (even if they weren’t exactly meta). In GW2, with its miniscule assortment of skills and playstyles, it’s a whole different story.

I swear there was an interview with an Anet dev back in 2010/2011 stating they learned their lessons from GW1 and wouldn’t punish PvE players. But the nyquil is kicking in, and thus I retire for the night.

Makai.3429:

So no one in this thread who is against skill splits gets miffed when their favorite profession gets nerfed due to balancing that has nothing to do with them? Why should my efficiency go down because of PvP, which I have no interest in?

Probably because it makes no sense for the devs to develop three games. The game is developed as one game providing a mix of PvE, sPvP and WvW, with it’s 2-3 sub-modes each.

Everyone plays them to different degrees, but they’re probably not developing for the “extremes” (tPvP-only, PvE-only, etc).

As such, changes try to encourage you to play more aspects of the game, not discourage you. Splitting would be a massive push of people into a sole game mode, as any newbie player will no longer even bother looking into a second game mode. And really, plenty players struggle picking up PvP after PvE-levelling even with the stuff being the same. They give up if not encouraged continuously. Now imagine if skills and traits were also balanced separately.

Carighan.6758:

Makai.3429:

So no one in this thread who is against skill splits gets miffed when their favorite profession gets nerfed due to balancing that has nothing to do with them? Why should my efficiency go down because of PvP, which I have no interest in?

Probably because it makes no sense for the devs to develop three games. The game is developed as one game providing a mix of PvE, sPvP and WvW, with it’s 2-3 sub-modes each.

Everyone plays them to different degrees, but they’re probably not developing for the “extremes” (tPvP-only, PvE-only, etc).

As such, changes try to encourage you to play more aspects of the game, not discourage you. Splitting would be a massive push of people into a sole game mode, as any newbie player will no longer even bother looking into a second game mode. And really, plenty players struggle picking up PvP after PvE-levelling even with the stuff being the same. They give up if not encouraged continuously. Now imagine if skills and traits were also balanced separately.

Creating a unified underlying system for 3 different rule sets has always turned out badly. This game is just another example as to why. The time spent in trying to get everything to work for every field is at least as bad as creating 3 different rule sets.

Rangersix.1754:

Creating a unified underlying system for 3 different rule sets has always turned out badly. This game is just another example as to why. The time spent in trying to get everything to work for every field is at least as bad as creating 3 different rule sets.

It’s a compromise. You could have 3 fully separate balance designs, but the amount of work needed for that is enormous, for – comparatively – little gain.

What’s your basis for thinking that trying to balance 1 thing for 3 rule sets is any better than balancing 3 things for 1 rule sets each?

Anet wants to try to make an MMO into an e-sport, it’s silly but for some reason they think it’ll work. That’s why they focus all their balancing on sPvP and try to appease the PvE crowd with whatever their interns churn out on a Friday afternoon.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Anet wants to try to make an MMO into an e-sport, it’s silly but for some reason they think it’ll work. That’s why they focus all their balancing on sPvP and try to appease the PvE crowd with whatever their interns churn out on a Friday afternoon.

Anet gave up on their eSport dream a long time ago. In fact, I don’t recall them ever saying they wanted to make GW2 an eSport.

Dusty Moon.4382:

You cannot balance just PvE in this game. PvE, WvW and PvP are linked. You cannot balance one without thinking of the other.

What you want is an OP PvE – NO

This is a factually incorrect statement as Anet eventually split off PvE from PvP skills in GW1 and as GW2 is based off the modified GW2 engine so this is within the current engine code; moreover, they have done some skill specific balances where PvE skills were modified independent of WvW/PvP. What the OP is asking for is within the scope of Anet’s abilities as the GW2 engine code is written. But it is unlikely as sPvP is pay for play while PvE is not therefore it is the old line – “follow the money” which prevents all of us who are here for PvE to truely enjoy GW2 as fully as we did the original GW game of the year.

Rangersix.1754:

What’s your basis for thinking that trying to balance 1 thing for 3 rule sets is any better than balancing 3 things for 1 rule sets each?

Economics. It takes substantially less manpower to have one set of balance rules for all abilities, than having to essentially support thrice as many skills, including all the meta-game changes different skill balance would bring.

Both solutions are “bad”. Splitting skills is bad. Not splitting them is bad. But if you got to pick, it makes sense that you’d pick the one where you spend less money on.

Carighan.6758:

Rangersix.1754:

What’s your basis for thinking that trying to balance 1 thing for 3 rule sets is any better than balancing 3 things for 1 rule sets each?

Economics. It takes substantially less manpower to have one set of balance rules for all abilities, than having to essentially support thrice as many skills, including all the meta-game changes different skill balance would bring.

Both solutions are “bad”. Splitting skills is bad. Not splitting them is bad. But if you got to pick, it makes sense that you’d pick the one where you spend less money on.

I’m really not convinced it does. First of all, if you want to balance every game mode at once, your balancing team needs to have detailed knowledge and extensive understanding of every aspect of the game, not just one. Harder to find someone with that knowledge (and Im convinced Anet sin’t using people with that kind if knowledge).

Second of all, it’s a lot easier to adjust the equation for one variable than for 3 very different variables.

Also, Im not exactly convinced that splitting them is ‘bad’ either. PvP and PvE have very different playstyles, even when using the same skill. You wouldn’t throw bolas/KD before you 100b something in PvE, and you wouldn’t use 100b as a part of a rotation in PvP. So a PvE player transitioning to PvP and vice versa has to essentially relearn parts of the game anyways.

Xae Isareth.1364:

I’m really not convinced it does. First of all, if you want to balance every game mode at once, your balancing team needs to have detailed knowledge and extensive understanding of every aspect of the game, not just one. Harder to find someone with that knowledge (and Im convinced Anet sin’t using people with that kind if knowledge).

The balance team needs to have detailed knowledge and extensive understanding of every aspect of the game anyway, unless there are three separate balance teams, one for each core aspect of the game- in which case, we’re now paying for three times as many balance teams as before. That’s not a trivial amount.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Second of all, it’s a lot easier to adjust the equation for one variable than for 3 very different variables.

They’re not that different. They’re all fundamentally much the same thing; adjusting the amount of damage Hundred Blades does in PvE has exactly the same effect in PvE as it does in PvP.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Also, Im not exactly convinced that splitting them is ‘bad’ either. PvP and PvE have very different playstyles, even when using the same skill. You wouldn’t throw bolas/KD before you 100b something in PvE, and you wouldn’t use 100b as a part of a rotation in PvP. So a PvE player transitioning to PvP and vice versa has to essentially relearn parts of the game anyways.

This is true. However, changing a player’s experience as a result of a change in enemy behavior, and changing a player’s skills right from underneath them are two wildly different things, and you are brushing under the rug a very huge amount of learning that has to happen by saying “they have to relearn parts of the game anyway”. Yeah, they have to relearn parts of the game, but they don’t have to relearn how their own controls work.

Aslong as arenanet insists on linking all gamemodes together and use the same balance changes for all, this is going to be a balance mess.

You cannot compare any of the gamemodes with eachother enough to lump em together when it comes to balance changes. The fact arenanet balances a gamemode around killing high-HP AI with preset strategies the same way they balance a gamemode thats about two small teams trying to shove eachother off a point is ludicrous.

PvE needs a rework, not balance patches. You need to completely redesign PvE encounters so that they aren’t a DPS race before you can even consider trying to balance for it.

Dusty Moon.4382:

You cannot balance just PvE in this game. PvE, WvW and PvP are linked. You cannot balance one without thinking of the other.

What you want is an OP PvE – NO

So it is ok for them to balance PvP without thinking of any other mode of play though?

Bran.7425:

So it is ok for them to balance PvP without thinking of any other mode of play though?

And to quote Ace Attorney, surely you can present evidence to support this claim?

Basic game design and engine is set for 5v5 look a target limits, AoE effects designed/rebalanced around nodes capture. The fact that most of the streams Anet produces are pvp-centric with a few (poorly done or quickly outdated) developer how to pve with a class (usually Cartwright [I do appreciate the attempt though])

But really Carighan can you prove otherwise?

Bran.7425:

Basic game design and engine is set for 5v5 look a target limits, AoE effects designed/rebalanced around nodes capture.

The aoe cap was born long after the game was released.
Also the balance changed the game around 5vs5.

You wouldn’t recognize many skills that were on prelaunch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTZwpKriFNw
XD

The fact that most of the streams Anet produces are pvp-centric with a few (poorly done or quickly outdated) developer how to pve with a class (usually Cartwright [I do appreciate the attempt though])

I would suggest izzy is behind most of the “most unpopular” balance changes since gw1.

Guild wars is qute famous for its lack of balance if you make some quick researches on Google.

P.S: also carighan will deny evidence forever as Always.
If you look my sig it alone proves anet balancing method.

Well, you got a point there with the PvP-balancing. Which is sad I suppose, sPvP is a terrible basis for balance decisions with it’s undersized teams skewing any class balance ad absurdum.

The 5-cap makes more sense in WvW, btw. It’s not really evidence for a tPvP-focus at all, since in tPvP it’s practically meaningless. I think WoW’s AE handling (hits everyone but splits the total effect by number of players hit) is better, though. At least it makes AEs reliable, if very weak. In GW2 I have full-strength AE, but don’t know who is going to be hit.

Sarrs.4831:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I’m really not convinced it does. First of all, if you want to balance every game mode at once, your balancing team needs to have detailed knowledge and extensive understanding of every aspect of the game, not just one. Harder to find someone with that knowledge (and Im convinced Anet sin’t using people with that kind if knowledge).

The balance team needs to have detailed knowledge and extensive understanding of every aspect of the game anyway, unless there are three separate balance teams, one for each core aspect of the game- in which case, we’re now paying for three times as many balance teams as before. That’s not a trivial amount.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Second of all, it’s a lot easier to adjust the equation for one variable than for 3 very different variables.

They’re not that different. They’re all fundamentally much the same thing; adjusting the amount of damage Hundred Blades does in PvE has exactly the same effect in PvE as it does in PvP.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Also, Im not exactly convinced that splitting them is ‘bad’ either. PvP and PvE have very different playstyles, even when using the same skill. You wouldn’t throw bolas/KD before you 100b something in PvE, and you wouldn’t use 100b as a part of a rotation in PvP. So a PvE player transitioning to PvP and vice versa has to essentially relearn parts of the game anyways.

This is true. However, changing a player’s experience as a result of a change in enemy behavior, and changing a player’s skills right from underneath them are two wildly different things, and you are brushing under the rug a very huge amount of learning that has to happen by saying “they have to relearn parts of the game anyway”. Yeah, they have to relearn parts of the game, but they don’t have to relearn how their own controls work.

1. You don’t nessecarily need to. You often have the PvE guys and the PvP guys inside balancing teams of companies. You aren’t nessecarily paying for extra heads if you consider the fact that trying to balance for multiple game modes at once is harder than trying to balance them separately.

2. They are very different. Just the fact that one game mode has enemies with 10-100 times the HP of the other makes them very different.

3. I don’t really see how adjusting a skill’s coefficient is changing the skill right underneath them. On the topic of actually changing how a skill works, if you got a mechanic like confusion which doesn’t work in a particular game mode from a fundamental level, what other choice do you have?

Re Confusion:
You could change the mechanic entirely, not only in PvE. Considering that since the nerf Confusion barely works in PvP and WvW compared to what it was supposed to be, that might be the reason why they’re not doing much, actually. Probably got “Confusion rework” on the backlog.

^ confusion is a mechanic that’s based off the element of decision-making. Unless you’re going to basically completely redesign the entire mechanic and strip it of that fundamental principle, it doesn’t work in PvE.

Retaliation is another case. PvE enemies hit slow and hard. You don’t want to get hit because getting hit in PvE often means 50%+ of your HP going poof. How then do you make a mechanic based around getting hit work in PvE?

Then comes stuff like Powerful Banners. That trait is useless in everything at the moment but how do you even start to make it work in all game modes? Given the long CD on banners, you’re looking at a coefficient of 6+ to even make people consider using it. That’s enough to 1HKO players in PvP. As amusing as instantly wiping out another zerg by raining banners all over them is, that would just screw WvW up completely.

Carighan.6758:

Bran.7425:

So it is ok for them to balance PvP without thinking of any other mode of play though?

And to quote Ace Attorney, surely you can present evidence to support this claim?

Yes. They targeted decap engineers for a nerf. This nerf was applied across the board in every single gamemode. Despite the simple fact decap Engineer was not overpowered, and infact quite worthless, in PvE and WvW.

A nerf to pve and wvw engineers based on the sole performance of one highly gimmicky build in an equally gimmicky gamemode.
And as we have seen on rare occaisions, arenanet is capable of making spvp exclusive balance changes. (f.e. Thief revealed is still 4sec in spvp, but 3sec in wvw and pve).

They simply choose to not do so.

Eh… I still don’t quite see how that nerf was specifically targeted at decap engis. Maybe how good they were at what they do was the straw that broke the camel’s back on deciding on it, but the change is not something specific to decapping. At all.

And sure, it’s a global nerf. But it removes a few worries for the devs especially in PvE in that players could get around very strong PvE debuffs passively, since mobs don’t have +conditionduration (a significant issue IMO, a mob with a tag “Long-lasting conditions” should have 200% duration or so for purposes of computations so that -duration effects interact properly).

So yeah, if that’s a decap nerf, then … well, it isn’t. It’s lacking focus to be that. The decap spec might have been the cause of the decision, but the change has a tPvP nerf as a side effect, not as the core element.
(Most changes always do what it says on the tin)

That’s not to say that tPvP isn’t way overvalued by the devs, a game mode which simply cannot be balanced because it tries to force a balance which the underlying genre doesn’t support (or which, in fact, is opposed to the genre’s ideal for class balance).

Carighan.6758:

Eh… I still don’t quite see how that nerf was specifically targeted at decap engis.

Other than way it was worded on the State of the Game (right before the change IIRC) that made it pretty clear to me.

PvP is always more sensitive to class imbalances and where the balance focus should be. Then PvE can be designed around it, which is exactly where GW2 fails for the most part.
Crappy AI, engine limitations and, IMHO, an over-reliance on single bosses, are the main culprits on making most PvE content too one dimensional, and the kind of things that should change (some number tweaking between game modes is always possible too) in order to improve the game.

In regards to confusion, for example, each PvE enemy could have a coefficient that modifies aftercasts and/or idle times between attacks based on the expected damage taken from a confusion tick.

You raise an interesting point. Unlike many other MMOs, GW2 seems to inherently be built around the idea of “many mobs”. Lots of abilities innately AE, downed, rally, temporary rezzing, finishers, condition caps, AE caps, no dedicated tanks/healers, these all work really well in multi-enemy situations and rather bad in single-enemy situations.

Kibazuka.1390:

They have abandoned dungeons long ago. Every balance update is with tpvp in mind only and dungeons players will just have to eat it up

I can assure you that pvp hasnt been balanced in a long time, and when it does they get it wrong.

Carighan.6758:

Eh… I still don’t quite see how that nerf was specifically targeted at decap engis. Maybe how good they were at what they do was the straw that broke the camel’s back on deciding on it, but the change is not something specific to decapping. At all.

And sure, it’s a global nerf. But it removes a few worries for the devs especially in PvE in that players could get around very strong PvE debuffs passively, since mobs don’t have +conditionduration (a significant issue IMO, a mob with a tag “Long-lasting conditions” should have 200% duration or so for purposes of computations so that -duration effects interact properly).

So yeah, if that’s a decap nerf, then … well, it isn’t. It’s lacking focus to be that. The decap spec might have been the cause of the decision, but the change has a tPvP nerf as a side effect, not as the core element.
(Most changes always do what it says on the tin)

That’s not to say that tPvP isn’t way overvalued by the devs, a game mode which simply cannot be balanced because it tries to force a balance which the underlying genre doesn’t support (or which, in fact, is opposed to the genre’s ideal for class balance).

They said it was a nerf specifically because of Decap Engineers. I’d say that pretty much seals it.

And decap engineer is an exclusive PvP thing

DaliIndica.9041:

Kibazuka.1390:

They have abandoned dungeons long ago. Every balance update is with tpvp in mind only and dungeons players will just have to eat it up

I can assure you that pvp hasnt been balanced in a long time, and when it does they get it wrong.

they at least attempt to balance it… but yes its usually wrong

To this day, the majority of builds are seen in every single match
Hambows, decap engi, MM necros, Spirit rangers, etc etc. This games lack of pvp build diversity is laughable…

But on topic, PvE balancing? you serious? for what? its like you said “face-roll” this is not going to change. This game is catered to be really easy pve wise. All you need to do in terms of open world PvE is tag mobs lol. roll a guardian and spam 1 on staff. Win. No amount of balancing will beat this. Unless you nerf guard staff 1 spam , which ain’t happening.

When you get into speed dung runs/ high lvl fracs, the diversity is better and theres a lot of ways to tackel these areas in terms of gear/trait diversity…. but yea asking for Open world pve balancing? lol? thats a joke. I hope anet doesn’t even bother to look into that lol. its 100% irrelevant and there are way more important things to work on

Xae Isareth.1364:

1. You don’t nessecarily need to. You often have the PvE guys and the PvP guys inside balancing teams of companies. You aren’t nessecarily paying for extra heads if you consider the fact that trying to balance for multiple game modes at once is harder than trying to balance them separately.

2. They are very different. Just the fact that one game mode has enemies with 10-100 times the HP of the other makes them very different.

3. I don’t really see how adjusting a skill’s coefficient is changing the skill right underneath them. On the topic of actually changing how a skill works, if you got a mechanic like confusion which doesn’t work in a particular game mode from a fundamental level, what other choice do you have?

1. So basically, what they already have. So no reason to change anything. Because they already think about these things.

2+3. You don’t see how adjusting a skill’s coefficient is changing the skill right underneath it, yet PvE is very different from PvP because of the exact same numbers. I do not see how these positions are mutually available.

Xae Isareth.1364:

^ confusion is a mechanic that’s based off the element of decision-making. Unless you’re going to basically completely redesign the entire mechanic and strip it of that fundamental principle, it doesn’t work in PvE.

Retaliation is another case. PvE enemies hit slow and hard. You don’t want to get hit because getting hit in PvE often means 50%+ of your HP going poof. How then do you make a mechanic based around getting hit work in PvE?

The solution I came up with after 5 seconds; increase the attack rate of enemies’ standard attacks in PvE while also reducing the damage of each individual hit to balance out the DPS. Both Confusion and Retaliation are solved by doing this, and the impact of dodging in PvE is reduced as well.

On Powerful Banners; have it increase the damage of the 1 and 4, and 2 when applicable, skills and have the damage caused by the Powerful Banners trait to also cause a PBAoE on the 5.

Sarrs.4831:

1. So basically, what they already have. So no reason to change anything. Because they already think about these things.

I never said they need to restructure their teams. the debate was on if their balancing philosophy needs to change.

2+3. You don’t see how adjusting a skill’s coefficient is changing the skill right underneath it, yet PvE is very different from PvP because of the exact same numbers. I do not see how these positions are mutually available.

Let me give you an example then. Churning Earth: the red haired stepchild of focus earth magic.

Change the skill coefficient in PvE to 5.5, PvP to 4. The skill itself doesn’t change, it’s in both game modes a high-risk high-damage skill. But the philosophy behind using it is different: in PvE you use it as a part of a rotation if you can to increase your DPS (you aren’t expecting to ‘burst’ a boss with 10m HP down with it), in PvP you use it as a skill to wreck a target.

Same skill after the change, different philosophies for its use.

Xae Isareth.1364:

^ confusion is a mechanic that’s based off the element of decision-making. Unless you’re going to basically completely redesign the entire mechanic and strip it of that fundamental principle, it doesn’t work in PvE.

Retaliation is another case. PvE enemies hit slow and hard. You don’t want to get hit because getting hit in PvE often means 50%+ of your HP going poof. How then do you make a mechanic based around getting hit work in PvE?

The solution I came up with after 5 seconds; increase the attack rate of enemies’ standard attacks in PvE while also reducing the damage of each individual hit to balance out the DPS. Both Confusion and Retaliation are solved by doing this, and the impact of dodging in PvE is reduced as well.

And that’s the problem. You’re basically asking for them to massively change how PvE works and pretty much redesign how damage mitigation works in this game. You’re supposed to dodge often to avoid attacks, enemies are supposed to hit you hard, and the attack speed in this game was made to cater to that.

Whether that was bad game design or not, that’s an another argument but changing it would mean stripping down almost every encounter in the game and rethinking them. That’s not viable.

On Powerful Banners; have it increase the damage of the 1 and 4, and 2 when applicable, skills and have the damage caused by the Powerful Banners trait to also cause a PBAoE on the 5.

Then you’re completely changing the way the trait works. That’s basically a new trait, that’s not balancing, that’s an overhaul.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Let me give you an example then. Churning Earth: the red haired stepchild of focus earth magic.

Change the skill coefficient in PvE to 5.5, PvP to 4. The skill itself doesn’t change, it’s in both game modes a high-risk high-damage skill. But the philosophy behind using it is different: in PvE you use it as a part of a rotation if you can to increase your DPS (you aren’t expecting to ‘burst’ a boss with 10m HP down with it), in PvP you use it as a skill to wreck a target.

Same skill after the change, different philosophies for its use.

Surely you mean Dagger earth magic?

Regardless of that, you’re ignoring several elements which affect the budget of Churning Earth. It has Cripple, it has a very wide AoE effect, it has a lot of bleeds, it has a blast finisher. You’re only analysing one element of the ability, which is its direct damage- and while its direct damage may be a problem, it is one element of many, and to ignore the other elements is to underexamine the ability on a fundamental level.

Xae Isareth.1364:

And that’s the problem. You’re basically asking for them to massively change how PvE works and pretty much redesign how damage mitigation works in this game. You’re supposed to dodge often to avoid attacks, enemies are supposed to hit you hard, and the attack speed in this game was made to cater to that.

Whether that was bad game design or not, that’s an another argument but changing it would mean stripping down almost every encounter in the game and rethinking them. That’s not viable.

On the philosophy of the game aspect; you’re not supposed to dodge often enough that you’re able to avoid every single enemy attack that comes your way. You are supposed to be dodging key attacks, not every one of them. This is where the entire zerker meta springs from- kill them before you run out of dodges, because every attack which you don’t dodge will deal huge amounts of damage. If you like that, fine, agree to disagree.

On the resources aspect; don’t care. Not my problem. Not my job to ponder on what resources ANet has available.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Then you’re completely changing the way the trait works. That’s basically a new trait, that’s not balancing, that’s an overhaul.

So?…

Bad traits get reworked.

Sure, update balance around PvE all you want.

But nothing is going to change as long as DPS is the only thing that matters.

pve update:

-nerf ele fgs #4

appreciated