Guild Wars 2

“But wait! What if the thing that killed me really was OP?”

In most MMOs, the game is usually fairly close to balance granted that the balancing decisions are well thought out and implemented. However, there is no such thing as perfect balance in a game where there are options to choose from. The only way to get perfect balance is to reduce everything to 1. One profession, one weaponset, one set of utilities, one elite and one battleground. Or like in rock-paper-scissors: one object, one weakness, one strength.

In GW2, you have 8 professions with a wide variety of effects making combat complex and imbalanced all over the place. Of course, a player will quickly have their kitten handed to them by something they don’t understand. Does that mean it is OP? Nope. It means the player who died failed to properly counter their opponent due to the lack of understanding of the mechanic that killed them. This problem they have can be mitigated through first or second hand experience.

However, pride will instead place blame on the mechanic that killed them and not themselves because the player thinks they know everything (or enough).

The only way to legitimately determine if it was indeed the fault of the mechanic is through extensive testing and mathematics in relation to the other classes. That means testing and math homework for all 8 professions. (have fun with that kitten lol)

But even if after all of that math and testing, a player has no room to complain in a competitive environment. Like I said, if they keep dying to the same thing, then they have the option to use it themselves if they can’t simply outperform it with what they have. The options are there. There is no excuse not to use them.

“So how do we nerf pride?”

By not enabling it.

If someone complains about something being OP, no matter who you are, tell them “Well if it is overpowered, then why are you not playing it?”. If they respond with anything but “Fine. I’ll go try it.” or an equivalent, respond with “Well in PvP the point is to win. If you are not trying to win, why are you even playing PvP? Don’t play PvP unless you are going to put forth the effort to win.”

You shut them down quickly and easily.

As for Arenanet, don’t listen to the complaints. If you want informed opinions on a profession, ask those who play it or play one yourself. They know more about their professions and they are more willing to come to reasonable compromises than anyone else. They just want their profession to be fun without the stigma and a little discussion with them will do just that.

Well that is all I need to talk about for this thread. I hope you enjoyed this and will at least look into this issue on your own time. For a start extra credits points it out better than I can.

…but…but that means admitting that I’m a baddie.

PUPPY YOU.

I think the first step is actually admitting that the supported game modes are not 1v1 and are not about killing each other.

This is what we always called “throwing logic at an illogical situation”.

Yes, I am excepted from any and all possible faults (not trying to make fun, just an unfortunate typo that creates this amazing loophole)

wipes tear from eye That…that was beautiful. So touching. 10/10.

What about people that actually play “OP” classes/builds and admit they are broken? Where does your logic apply there?

There have been many times when some classes/builds were indeed broken, people would roll them and make even videos how they would hit 1 button or just literary roll their face on keyboard on webcam and win fights with it.
Best example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qiy1W_NQJRA

There is a counter to everything. Just because it isn’t seen doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist

I like everything about this post. However the title suggest you are doing exactly what you are mocking, and therefore will not garner any important viewings. (say an ArenaNet moderator)

jcbroe.4329:

Yes, I am excepted from any and all possible faults (not trying to make fun, just an unfortunate typo that creates this amazing loophole)

Fixed it!

How embarrassing X3 lol

Cynz.9437:

What about people that actually play “OP” classes/builds and admit they are broken? Where does your logic apply there?

There have been many times when some classes/builds were indeed broken, people would roll them and make even videos how they would hit 1 button or just literary roll their face on keyboard on webcam and win fights with it.
Best example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qiy1W_NQJRA

Have they done extensive testing and involved all factors available when they formed that conclusion? It is usually never a simple “roll face to win” scenario. Is the combat of WoW a numbers game? Was the warrior ill-equipped for the situation? If the warrior facerolled their skills aswell, would it have evened the odds? Was the warrior even trying?

Those kinds of videos should NEVER be a basis for an argument because it only shows a few aspects of combat and not the whole picture. That is why you see people show a good or great player take out alot of bad players who you only see spamming 1 and then come to the conclusion that X is OP. That is never the case.

Now if someone gets on the forums and posts measurements and percentage difference between each profession’s maximum possible DPS coupled with builds/rotations/methods in which to obtain said level of DPS and the likelihood of each profession obtaining said level of DPS being reached due to usual circumstances in combat AND post a video of it in action (breathes in)….

then they could make that conclusion based on what the data shows.

Ghotistyx.6942:

There is a counter to everything. Just because it isn’t seen doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist

except that counter is not available for all classes and all builds
and some builds are complete bs no brainer like PU or shadow rejuv or other AI builds and stuff. i play them, they are pure aids for pvp environment and should not exist.
they can win almost every 1v1 doesnt matter of your skills, but they are actually useless in organised tpvp too, so pretty much the bad toy made for bad players to make themselves feel better.

Nice thread, and well written so plus one to you!

I have to be honest, I also fell victim to the “This is OP” mentality, but I usually took the time to learn the class and/or build before complaining on the forums…

This game is highly team driven, in my 1v1 experiences, I have learned that what might be good in a team, falls short against some classes and builds… I know that as a result of how the power shifted in between classes thast small scale fights become more and more apparent, but this does not mean that any class and/or build should be able to overcome it.

The biggest offenders are usually those saying a spec in 1v1 is overpowered, while by knowledge, anticipation or even tactically retreating to an area more suited for the fight can ensure you a victory… There is no such thing as unbeatable, even the previous Warriors, although a tad ridiculous, could have been overcome by wits… After all, knowledge is power (though this does not mean being powerful makes you all knowing)

There is also the thing with people wanting to have “High risk, high reward” builds to be able to shut down many builds that do not require the same effort, while in reality we all know that this is impossible – if this came to be, then all the “pros” would run the same high risk build and shut down any less comptent player, thus ruining the player experiences for novice and new players… I agree that High risk and reward should be a thing, but quite frankly, I think it is… S/F Elementalist when freecasting is the best example imho, leave him for one moment and you will be dead, however they can, luckily, be killed by not just running the same build or class, but by clever play as well…

Again, kudos for the thread, this was a good read

So many people are complaining that so many professions and builds are overpowered right now it’s ridiculous lol.

Elitist mindset (I’m the strongest player in the game and if anyone beats me then they only did it through hacks, exploits, or they’re overpowered) OP, plz nerf.

yolo swaggins.2570:

jcbroe.4329:

Yes, I am excepted from any and all possible faults (not trying to make fun, just an unfortunate typo that creates this amazing loophole)

Fixed it!

How embarrassing X3 lol

It happens to all of us lol. Good write up regardless I am always in 100% support of the reinforcement of the idea that in order to discuss balance, people need to first have the foresight to see beyond and below their own personal skill barrier as well as removing all bias any in game experiences have created.

People (in general) never seem to be able reason beyond “x happened when I was on y class” and then associate that as a universal constant because if it happened like that to them then that must be the only outcome, and wasn’t a favorable outcome that happened to them, then clearly it is either a hard counter or overpowered.

That is the problem when discussing balance at all in an open public forum. A million anecdotes won’t even necessarily reflect an accurate depiction of balance because people always discuss actual things that happened to them instead of actually discussing balancing for skill, which would involve things like determining theoretical perfect play to potential output, whether or not the skill level of players would ever equal that requirements need to attain theoretical perfect play, and how the output then suffers from non-perfect play as well as being faced up against another class operating at perfect at not perfect efficiency levels (who would also have to go through the same gauntlet).

And that’s just a basic, clear cut example to add to the discussion without over complicating it with all of the different factors that need to be balanced for lol.

Of course we could all just watch this video again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w

I can t speak for PvP, but the problem of WWW are PvP balance developers.

And the players who believe PvP and WWW have similar balance…

But hey “www is meant to be unbalanced”… most used excuse since august 2012.

Can you just accept the fact the only balancing thing about extremely OP skills is the inability to get “pvp points”?

Can you just see how wrong can it be out of PvP?

The thing is, how will you balance WvWvW?

What most servers tend to do is winning by numbers (and experience), so balancing via 1v1 specs would maybe return into crippling the way WvWvW is played (maybe a right thing I do not know)

I think the deal with WvWvW is that the scale is too big to calculate for every encounter… If they say made the map suited for 40-60 man groups/guilds, with only a few objectives (Two castles maybe), you could more easily retrieve data on what the builds are, the roles and how these are played within this setting…
Of course, this is my opinion, and you are inclined to disagree with me, after all my WvWvW experience was rather small…

yolo swaggins.2570:

This thread is meant to address a misconception that is currently wreaking havoc in every form of PvP in this game. What I am going to talk about probably THE source of most of the toxicity that exists in the PvP and WvW game modes and I have hopes that putting this problem to light will help the players become a little more wary of complaints.

So without further delay, I present to you the source:

It is pride. The inability to accept that you, as a player, have faults and are unwilling to admit that there are personal factors you can improve upon (like experience).

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How the problem of pride relates to the misconception is this…

PvP is a game mode where you are pitted against another player using the game as a medium. Since the opposing side is controlled by a living player, the game becomes competitive. Both players striving to come out on top.

In a competitive game like GW2 PvP and WvW, you are guaranteed to run into a player who capitalizes on the required mentality for PvP. These players are usually hard to kill because they actually strive to win. If for any reason said player gets killed, they either find a way to beat it with everything they have at their disposal or they play whatever killed them and continue on winning.

Said player is the kind of PvPer that every PvP mode needs.

Now this is where pride comes in and how it causes this misconception. When a player gets beaten but is absorbed with pride, that player will deny most if not all fault within themselves and place blame on outside sources. Now this isn’t a big deal by itself. However, this problem becomes more severe the more often this behavior is enabled.

And it is not hard to enable it.

A player whose experienced the same kind of grief as another player who previously posted said complaint on the forums will see the thread as a form of confirmation, thus reinforcing their beliefs. Any incoherent, rage-induced complaining then is reverberated throughout the forums and the fallacy eventually becomes a widely believed delusion even to the players who know for a fact that it is false.

Developers can also enable this behavior by listening and acting upon it. By basing balancing decisions off of the complaints of loud minorities, you confirm a problem that never existed. Their belief that the problem lies within external sources instead of both external and internal sources is now reinforced.

Both forms of enabling (combined) leads to chaotic balancing. But more importantly, it lets players comfortably assume that Arenanet WILL nerf something if they complain hard and loud enough.

---

This SHOULD NOT happen. Nobody should allow this kind of behavior to go on especially when the players themselves have more than enough resources and options to work with their issues in combat. It breeds poor (actually kittenty) sportsmanship, honor, etc. among the community. Everyone pays the price and everyone is to blame.

Gaming forums of pvp games have always been like this, there’s always been a part of complaining and crying that something is OP.

And many times they’re right, it’s downright impossible for a software house to deliver a pvp game that’s perfectly balanced from the start and people will complain
But while the playerbase is wide and filled with many newbies that will jump on the forum righting papers on how thieves are OP because at their first 10mins in wvw they got killed twice by a profession they have no idea how to counter the devs should know better

It’s up to the devs to know how to get their informations on how to pull out the next balance patch, i don’t get all this whine against the community (which for sure isn’t perfect)
On another side, balance issues should be addressed constantly and not once every 6 months

On one more point, we’re talking about a dev team that took almost an year to fix something gamebreaking like the perma-immobilize bug on blinks and that 9months ago said “SOON™ we’ll introduce new ways to use empyreal fragments”

GoogleBrandon.5073:

The thing is, how will you balance WvWvW?

What most servers tend to do is winning by numbers (and experience), so balancing via 1v1 specs would maybe return into crippling the way WvWvW is played (maybe a right thing I do not know)

I think the deal with WvWvW is that the scale is too big to calculate for every encounter… If they say made the map suited for 40-60 man groups/guilds, with only a few objectives (Two castles maybe), you could more easily retrieve data on what the builds are, the roles and how these are played within this setting…
Of course, this is my opinion, and you are inclined to disagree with me, after all my WvWvW experience was rather small…

I can tell you how most other companies balance stuff and how possibly original developer tried to do it.

Its about normalizing skills and considering risk/rewards of each…then looking at profession defining one.

What we have now:
A Whole bunch of OP skills and totally useless skills, balanced via TRAITS and with no guidelines.

If a skill seems too strong, developers nerfs everything else randomly of the profession.
If a profession lacks good skills, dvelopers change traits.

WHat is quite common is skill nerfs and trait buffs.
No wonder the gameplay is getting worse.

We totally need the opposite.

And mostly the captuire poibnt balance is the possible worse mistake that could be done.
Its just ensuring frustration outside PvP at any patch.

Best way would be normalizing skills and then changing them balancing about risk/reward also adding few slightly more powerful to add profession identity.

And reduce by a lot traits impact that give Birth to absurd builds.

TL:DR
Balance by guidelines not by trial and error.

P.S. and they don t even try to balance WWW they don t even care about the impact of PvP changes on WWW and PvE….

LordByron.8369:

snipping for readability

Interesting, but now that I think about it, this is mostly due to Anet not communicating with the subcommunities a lot…

Take the passive fears for Necromancers now for instance – they recieve a lot of hate with a “very good reason”. There is however an underlying problem in downright nerfing Reaper’s Protection, a trait meant to overcome a main weakness within a Necromancer’s build, namely CC
Now what people want is to have it removed – Gone, no random fear, no nothing, but does this solve the issue that Necromancer’s have? No, it only gives them a flaw within their design and makes them even more of a pingpongball than they are right now…
However, we, as players, know that passives in any kind of way are just downright silly or broken – Shared Anguish, Mirror of Anguish, Transmute, Prismatic Understanding and likely a lot of other traits like these are random procs meant to overcome a weakness for the class – but in reality they are unreliable and only kitten enemy players off since you cannot count for them…
Some players, I would not say all, but some have some really great insights within their classes and can outline how these traits can be changed to make them both more reliable as well as giving it more legit counterplay than just praying…

The reason, I think, there are classes which are horribly broken within WvWvW (and mostly 1v1’s I think), is because of this lack of communication with the community… However, and be aware of this, there is also a very large part just complaining about skills/traits and builds, giving no information as to what is wrong with those and only scream “My God, this is OP and needs to be nerfed!” – this is feedback done wrong, and will therefore lead to poorly implemented balancing (Such as the current Warrior Adrenaline Decay, and the numerous uncalled for Thief nerfs)

Anet needs to communicate with us better regarding balance, and we, as players, need to be clear on what is wrong – sadly, since this is an open community, this will likely not happen as the larger portion of the said balancing communit lacks the broad overview of why certain things exist on classes, think it is unfair, and thus only rage about specs being broken…

Anet also needs to stop balancing everything around PvP – it was recently openly said they did not want to “confuse” players by not having such a “gap” in between the modes, but they need to realize that first of all the gap already exists with the absence of Asceneded gear, certain sigils and runes and food in PvP – this creates a whole different enviroment as compared to WvWvW, and that did not evne get me started on PvE and the huge difference in that mode… If anything, it should confuse a player a lot more that all the skills are the same within the said modes, yet they “need to” change a build according to every setting – if everything is unified, how can that be?

I’ll just leave this here because it’s interesting and very much how I feel about the recent Ranger Buffs.

http://youtu.be/e31OSVZF77w

Also +100000 for OP.

Was said they don t want PvP and rest of the game having a gap.

That was indeed the clearest example of damage control since if it was what they wanted they would balance around PvE or WWW.

Also the real reason was stated more than once.
And its the fact splitting skills costs work.

That is the only honest statement about it.

If you look at GW2 outside PvP you find one of the most unbalanced games in mmorpg history.

Glad a bunch of you liked the read. I hope a few anet employees read it as well because it is a very important subject that needs to be addressed.

+1, Excellent thread mate. I will add one point, being a software guru myself. It is not fair to the developers for players to assume they are randomly adjusting skills and traits without knowledge. I know this sounds odd, because we are all so used to hearing the complaint threads, that we start to believe the evil developers are clueless. The truth is they have access to a wealth of information we don’t have.

They can easily analyze the builds used in all the winning matches on a given night, week, or month as well as all the builds used in loosing matches. Based on the statistics, they will be able to identify anomalies, like 90% of the winning matches involved the use of turret exploding engineers and those players have consistently been winning matches against teams with more experience (higher ranked, etc).

I am sure they combine their findings based on information found in the community forums as well. The end result may appear odd to us at times, because we may not entirely understand what they have found and what they are trying to accomplish. To the OP’s original post, it is important for us to keep our pride in check and make thoughtful posts when we feel something is amiss, and not to jump to conclusions.

Inaccurate QQ threads, based on bruised pride, make it harder for the developers to use the forums to identify the real issues. Thus making the game more imbalanced. It’s kind of like loosing your temper and randomly spraying pee all over the toilet because you believe the new toilet seat has a defect. You will have to fix it anyway, only now you will be dealing with a sticky smelly mess. Good luck finding the squeak…

Tim.6450:

I think the first step is actually admitting that the supported game modes are not 1v1 and are not about killing each other.

That’s a little too much for some to swallow…
Some people’s “bigger picture” remains in a 1v1 scenario regardless of what’s going on around them.

I somtimes blame the mechanics….

Because there are BUGS!

yolo swaggins.2570:

Snip

So kitten true.

I’ve learned to know that it’s my fault when I mess up.
But on the other hand, there are things that I can’t help. Those problems are things like hard CC warriors. They just hard cc me for the whole fight while DEALING DAMAGE through their cc skills.

The balancing in this game is off (but not wrong), but I would’ve have made different categories of skills.
Damage, Soft-cc, CC and Defense skills. Any can be combined into a combo of two, except Damage and CC.
That system would have caused (since I’m playing Ranger, I will use examples according to it)
skills like Hilt Bash, Concussion Shot and any other daze/stun/knock skill to deal 0 damage.

Almost every skill in this game is given a damage component.

I feel like it’s a pretty unfair way to shut down arguments about balance by simply saying “just embrace whatever you think is OP.” It’s true that a truly competitive player should just play to win and play whatever is needed in order to do so, but I don’t think that has much bearing on, as a matter of general discussion, figuring out what’s actually too strong and not too strong.

To put it another way, I think embracing only a competitive mindset when talking about a game is a fairly narrow way of evaluating a game. If GW2 devolved into a meta where every player ran 5 Celestial Bunkers that run the timer out every match, which is “countered” by a team of 5 Zerker Burst classes, is it not fair to take a step back and say “hey, this meta kinda sucks” and watch as your already dwindling PvP community continues to leave because of how unfun the game has become?

Taking a pulse on what the community feels and what engages them to play and is enjoyable is important. If a class falls in power to the point where it’s simply unplayable at high level, why shouldn’t the players of that class ask for changes? There was an entire year where the Elementalist was simply unviable in sPvP entirely, and it’s no coincidence that many of the players who mained Ele just quit the game. You can fault them for not being hardcore enough or not Playing To Win enough, but I think the game and community are small enough that we’d be at a pretty big loss if even one of the professions and all the players who enjoy that profession were left out of PvP.

But ultimately, I think what’s really dangerous is trying to kill all balance discussion altogether, with the reasoning that players shouldn’t concern themselves with balance because they’re the players. Quite honestly, the players will have a decent understanding of, at the very least, what is enjoyable and what isn’t, and GW2 is full of terribly unenjoyable things that have brought down the PvP scene. You accuse the developers of paying too much attention to the playerbase, I accuse them of not paying enough attention. Players are sick of fighting minion builds, builds that burst players from 100 to 0 (often from stealth, in the clutter of AI, or from far away), builds that DoT you to death and thus mandate that nearly every class build themselves around condition removal, builds that heal forever, builds that are just so tanky, builds that build up so much damage with Might that squishier more midrange builds can’t be played anymore. Players are tired of not having more game modes. Hell, players are tired of kittenING SKYHAMMER.

GW2 PvP sucks in its current state. And I blame that more on the developers than the players. I’d rather give the players the chance to speak their mind on what should be done, rather than just silence all discussion and quietly obediently obey whatever ANet says should be done.

Archon.6480:

I know this sounds odd, because we are all so used to hearing the complaint threads, that we start to believe the evil developers are clueless. The truth is they have access to a wealth of information we don’t have.

They can easily analyze the builds used in all the winning matches on a given night, week, or month as well as all the builds used in loosing matches. Based on the statistics, they will be able to identify anomalies, like 90% of the winning matches involved the use of turret exploding engineers and those players have consistently been winning matches against teams with more experience (higher ranked, etc).

I am sure they combine their findings based on information found in the community forums as well. The end result may appear odd to us at times, because we may not entirely understand what they have found and what they are trying to accomplish. To the OP’s original post, it is important for us to keep our pride in check and make thoughtful posts when we feel something is amiss, and not to jump to conclusions.

This. People seem to just assume for whatever reason that the folks who MADE the game have less clue about it than they themselves do.

Cool stories bro.

I’m Glad you guys agree that when I could Heart Seeker any class from 100-0 in the span of haste it was because I was ~~~PrO mLG~~~ and not that it was overpowered.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

The thing is, how will you balance WvWvW?

More points per tick for the objectives held by the least covered side? Seems so odd right…

Neko.9021:

snip

But I am not asking for players to shut down all balance discussion, just the toxic kind.

Nowadays when a player says “this is OP”, it almost always comes from someone with a lack of understanding of the mechanic or someone who has recently died to it. And until they post enough evidence to present their case, it’ll remain QQ.

Same with those who say, “this is UP” to a lesser extent. It is known that most of the professions have a good amount of bad traits and skills that range from detrimental to unappealing. Usually, it is due to high CDs vs short-lived ability, a trait that only affects one skill or a trait that does not provide any impact to combat whatsoever, like a filler trait.

But either way it is up to the player to provide the evidence.

Artaz.3819:

GoogleBrandon.5073:

The thing is, how will you balance WvWvW?

More points per tick for the objectives held by the least covered side? Seems so odd right…

Elaborate…
That makes me think that if Side A holds 3 camps and Side B holds 6 camps, side A will get more points than B (or close to, say 4-5 points for A and 6 points for B ). Why would anyone want to capture things then? Or in the same scenario (A-3, B-6) are A and B going to get the same amount (assuming the points multiple is let’s say 2 when your side has less, so A would get 6 points and B would also get 6 points)? This idea also doesn’t reward defending, as the side with more coverage, having to defend more doesn’t get a multiplier like the side with the least coverage having to defend less. So, going back to A has 3 camps with 4 points and B has 6 camps with 6 points – each A camp is valued at 4/3 points while each B camp is valued at 1 point. While it’s easier for A to allocate forces to 3 camps and save more points by defending, B has to allocate across 6 camps to save less points than A. Further even if A loses a point in comparison to B it will lose less points (difference between having 3 camps then having 2 camps points) since it still retains a multiplier for having less camps (can’t exactly show with small numbers), while B will lose more (difference between 6 and 5 camps points) – this also effectively means that if A is on the offensive taking 1 of B’s camps, it’s getting rewarded more since it still has less camps than B (so A now has 4 camps with a point multiplier for having the least amount, while B has 5 camps and no multiplier).
In a 1v1v1 perspective, the amount of reward for taking something will be A>B>C – where A has the least amount of camps captured and C has the most. For C defending will suck the most since there’s possibly 2 sides against it and it has to allocate across a greater camp coverage.

Plus the scoring is more high-level stuff, as opposed to what most people think when they think “WvW balance” – which typically means class “balance” in relation to WvW, which possibly leads to changes in zerg/havoc/roaming composition.

yolo swaggins.2570:

But either way it is up to the player to provide the evidence.

Sadly, not going to happen sooner or later…

I made this thread in relation to your post, but soon, after I was nearing the end of my post, I noticed how futile my efforts of getting more healthier discussions actually are…

Hater’s gonna hate… And it will stay this way sadly…

You’de be surprised. People have a way of pulling through by seeing and using more available options.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

The thing is, how will you balance WvWvW?

DAoC had a nice approach to this.

TL’DR: Balance in large-scale means balancing individual scaling for group size and giving everyone overpowered stuff in different situations. “sPvP-like” balance is meaningless and not required, in fact it usually is counter-productive, you want 1v1-imbalance.

The goal was never to “balance” RvR, as in, make sure that 40 players of any combination would have a 50/50 win or loss chance on even terrain when facing 40 other players of any combination. That’s 1v1-style balance, and often futile in MMOs due to the size of the specialization-tree. Too many variables.

Rather, it’s balance worked on the assumption that for a mass-combat to feel balanced, each player needs to feel like they can contribute. That is to say, even if it is smoke&mirrors, each player has to feel like they directly impact the course of the fight, and needs to (think they) visibly change the outcome.

One way to implement this is to make everyone intentionally overpowered, just in different ways, leaving a few glaring holes in their setup as an achilles heel. This is the setup TF2 uses, for example. At far range, no, a heavy cannot do jack against a sniper who will simply 1-shot him. But that same sniper has no way to stop the spy sneaking up on him with a cloak&dagger watch. Etc.
In less extreme black&white ways, this was the basis of DAoC’s balance philosophy: Your class rocks the house at X. If you are met by Y, you stand very little chance. Class B however can help you, they’re adept at situation Y.

There’s one other thing which needs a look at if you do this, and that is balanced scaling. The above idea works on the assumption that you want someone else to cover for you in the areas where you are weak, in turn you feel like without you (and your classmates, it leads to an interesting identity-feel) the fight could have never ended in victory because in situation X, only you could help out.
To not fall apart, this needs to work independent of size. 4 Mesmers in a group of 32 should have as much “mesmery power” as 10 Mesmers in a group of 80. And so on. Roughly at least, this can’t be done perfectly.

Now, the funny thing is that neither of these two points – and in fact, DaoC as a whole – was ever concerned with “If I duel this guy, can we both win”. Because fact was, in most situations there was a hard-determined winner, shield tank vs bolt caster for example was something the bolt caster couldn’t win as all their spells would bounce off the shield passively and as soon as they took damage they could no longer even cast anything.
But curiously enough, in large-scale combat it doesn’t matter. As long as each player has situations where their class really, really excels, where they feel like they’re the ones moving the entire zerg along, and as long as this works independent of zerg size (with a lower limit given by the number of classes, obviously), players feel balanced in such situations. Or rather they feel great, which is what we want to feel when we ask for balance.

(edit)
The stuff above sounds like the roles in a trinity-based (or rather hexa-based, as it were originally 6 roles) work, and yes that is true, only the roles were more. Six roles are the basis of RPG class design but in the context of mass-scale PvP, certain hybrid setups and indirect roles are quite distinct.

Examples

• Shield tank, physically blocking projectiles while standing in the frontline, also blocking players via collision detection. In contrast to durable melee fights who actively attack but can take a lot of punishment.
• Permastealthed assassins ganking outliers and camping bridges for people trying to run back alone, also doing recon. In contrast to briefly stealthed fighters able to compete in group situations and having a fighting chance in a fair fight, these are never meant to fight fair, and they’re not intended to even attempt it.
• Bolt casters, able to 2/3 shot someone from beyond their own attack range, but not being able to repeat it as targets in closer-range combat are immune to their spells as they get physically blocked even by friendly players. Take down the front line, act as a sniper, but then leave the main fight to the others.

Yolo Swaggins, your thesis doesn’t apply to strict group/team balance, which is arguably how this game is designed.

Strict team balance distributes utility between players, meaning you have to rely on allies to provide counters/support.

While counters in GW2 generally aren’t that extreme, build weaknesses likely exist which have no efficient answer, thereby affording some credibility to the “whiners”.

The misconception with these players however is their failure to acknowledge that strict team balance implies 1v1 imbalance, therefore rendering their point moot; the game isn’t balanced for 1v1.

There’s no single build equip to effectively deal with every other, which places a higher emphasis of skill on team composition and map placement/awareness.

Erebos.6741:

Yolo Swaggins, your thesis doesn’t apply to strict group/team balance, which is arguably how this game is designed.

Strict team balance distributes utility between players, meaning you have to rely on allies to provide counters/support.

While counters in GW2 generally aren’t that extreme, build weaknesses likely exist which have no efficient answer, thereby affording some credibility to the “whiners”.

The misconception with these players however is their failure to acknowledge that strict team balance implies 1v1 imbalance, therefore rendering their point moot; the game isn’t balanced for 1v1.

There’s no single build equip to effectively deal with every other, which places a higher emphasis of skill on team composition and map placement/awareness.

Of course… every time someone complains about a profession it is usually because they are basing it on 1v1s. However my argument is that giving into them, regardless if their points are moot, is only making game worse.

It is a troll that has been fed for the entirety of this game’s existence. All that needs to happen is for the playerbase to get proactive and cut it off early. That is the point of this thread, to get players to understand the situation at it’s core and handle it properly before it gets blown further out of proportion.

How about a forum rule that deletes any “X is OP” threads unless the player attaches their gameplay video so the community can debate whether “X” is OP or whether the player needs to change the way they play. Said video must also show build/traits to allow for informed discussion.

Swamurabi.7890:

How about a forum rule that deletes any “X is OP” threads unless the player attaches their gameplay video so the community can debate whether “X” is OP or whether the player needs to change the way they play. Said video must also show build/traits to allow for informed discussion.

It might be enough to trigger discussion but the point is proof. To prove that something is too strong, the OP needs to provide evidence involving all factors into their hypothesis.

There is no other way.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Swamurabi.7890:

How about a forum rule that deletes any “X is OP” threads unless the player attaches their gameplay video so the community can debate whether “X” is OP or whether the player needs to change the way they play. Said video must also show build/traits to allow for informed discussion.

It might be enough to trigger discussion but the point is proof. To prove that something is too strong, the OP needs to provide evidence involving all factors into their hypothesis.

There is no other way.

The problem as I see it, is that everyone who makes a thread here has a bad habit of making definitive claims. You never see someone make a thread and simply suggest they feel something might be over powered. They simply make rant threads, proclaim something as OP as if it were a cold hard fact, and are completely close minded when it comes to any opposing argument. Which simply invites more close minded claimers.

coglin.1867:

yolo swaggins.2570:

Swamurabi.7890:

How about a forum rule that deletes any “X is OP” threads unless the player attaches their gameplay video so the community can debate whether “X” is OP or whether the player needs to change the way they play. Said video must also show build/traits to allow for informed discussion.

It might be enough to trigger discussion but the point is proof. To prove that something is too strong, the OP needs to provide evidence involving all factors into their hypothesis.

There is no other way.

The problem as I see it, is that everyone who makes a thread here has a bad habit of making definitive claims. You never see someone make a thread and simply suggest they feel something might be over powered. They simply make rant threads, proclaim something as OP as if it were a cold hard fact, and are completely close minded when it comes to any opposing argument. Which simply invites more close minded claimers.

Or you could say that when someone who is known to play said profession that any and all arguments, regardless of validity, are null because the player “is blindly defending their profession”. And since the defending side is null, the opposing side wins by default. It is incredibly sad watching that kind of thing happen in debate.

AMEN! Brother Yolo Swaggins! AMEN!

Great post Yolo.

Are you really arguing against balancing?

“play whatever killed them” seems a horrible idea to me for multiple reasons.
It assumes all there is to PvP and WvW is 1v1, which is false.
And in a situation where build A has the advantage against build B, which has the advantage against build C, which has the advantage against build A, you’d be constantly switching builds for no good reason.

I know I could be better, I just like playing a condition necromancer; that’s not pride, it could be called stubbornness but certainly not pride.

Stop trying to balance and support 1v1(duels included) ,way too many unkown factors to find the fight “fair” ,added with biased and personal rules against elite,traits….can end up giving you an advantage because you refuse to fight what can counter you or make you struggle.

Solo encounter happens but anyone that has final tought of it being equal is a fool. You can’t judge them on fight result but the content and how they react to each other.
All builds have counters nothing is fully OP.

bump, because this needs another good read.

Etienne.3049:

Are you really arguing against balancing?

“play whatever killed them” seems a horrible idea to me for multiple reasons.
It assumes all there is to PvP and WvW is 1v1, which is false.
And in a situation where build A has the advantage against build B, which has the advantage against build C, which has the advantage against build A, you’d be constantly switching builds for no good reason.

I know I could be better, I just like playing a condition necromancer; that’s not pride, it could be called stubbornness but certainly not pride.

It is actually a good idea to let players find out for themselves because it shows how effective a certain profession or build can be. Overtime, players will eventually settle on the best effort:reward option they have available. The more players achieve this the easier it is to spot popular builds.

From there, the balancing team can determine if the build or it’s counters need adjusting by monitoring the meta. If the meta shifts to variants of the previous meta’s counter, then there is no reason to touch it.

But if the meta doesn’t shift, or shows an attempt but never successfully accomplishes it, then adjustment needs to be done to move it along.

Zero Day.2594:

Artaz.3819:

GoogleBrandon.5073:

The thing is, how will you balance WvWvW?

More points per tick for the objectives held by the least covered side? Seems so odd right…

Elaborate…

Side A has 80 players
Side B has 30 players

Side A gets the standard point per tick per objective.
Side B gets the standard point per tick a percentage bonus for being outmanned (like +33% *) per objective.

Ergo, for all things being equal, Side B must hold 75% of Side A for both of them to tick for the same point value per tick.

• Note, rough guess