Guild Wars 2

I… you… what now….?

Thief has a lack of builds or viable weapon sets? I don’t even know what to say to this it’s just wrong. Every single trait tree and every single weapon set sees significant use. There are condi glassy and tanky thiefs…

if you are talking about pve then every class has only 1 build==> whatever has highest dps

ens.9854:

if you are talking about pve then every class has only 1 build==> whatever has highest dps

That’s another balance issue I failed to address but wanted to, but would work into what OP said. There’s no reason flat DPS should be the only viable thing. DoTs (which aren’t strong at all at the moment, if my testing is correct) need to be reworked. Minions need severe reworking, not nerfs. I could go on, but everyone has the picture I’m sure.

hands down… the real problem is that the “No Holy Trinity” just isn’t working in a proper PvE.

it doesn’t matter that someone deals decent damage and endures 1 or 2 more hits, if another one deals way more damage but dies earlier just because even if you could “tank” there are no healer to make it worth for you being tanky. Now to make your tankier build working you need to buff your own healing since you won’t recover the same percentage and your heals will be less effective without it. But with the need to increase your heal aswell your damage output will suffer even more and because of the high cooldowns of heal and defensive abilities it’s ineffecient in comperision against full DPS.

So all we do in PvE is more kiting/dodge rolls than actually fighting.

So many builds would be viable if their own defense and/or their defensive support
would be actually as usefull as pure damage or increasing damage support builds.

like MonMalthias said in the OP instead of “DPS,Tank,Heal” we have “DPS only” in GW2 which is making at least PvE less attractive to almost every kind of player who is more focused on the PvE content than PvP

Well, I think GW2s PvE could work if they just focus on giving PvE mobs better tooös and improve their AI. Look at PvP, it works there, too. Why? Because of CCs, the need to finish of enemys, condition damage that every build needs to adress in some ways, cause you get debuffed, because the enemys use buffs that you need to cleanse etc.

In my opinion GW2s greatest potential lies in build experimenting, lile in GW1, but you need build diverdity and changes for that. I don’t think I’m the only player that took a break for over a year because of that. And then, when we have that build diversity, we need greatly rewardong content that is incredible hard, so that the players are forced to push their builds and skills to the utmost limits.

constantLogic.3486:

snip

I know it’s been said before, actually I’ve said it before, but I really think to have any kind of proper balance there does need to be a separation of pve and pvp. snip.

snip

I strongly disagree with the sentiment that proper balance requires a separation of PVE and PVP, that widespread splits are somehow better for the game. For returning or newer players that may wish to participate in more than 1 game mode, and for the developers, introducing and maintaining splits of skills is a nightmare of un-learning muscle memory and re-learning every time one wishes to enter into PVP from PVE or vice versa. It further divides the community in a game that is already so night and day between game modes.

What is needed instead is for PVE to be closer to PVP. This means:

• Smarter, harder AI with skill rotations and synergy between mob types
• Cross mob-type combos that players can read and try to disrupt
• Making fighting “trash” mobs actually rewarding instead of loading all the rewards into the damage sponge boss/veteran/champion and rewarding stealth skipping/teleport skipping mechanics.
• Overall the mechanics should support the emergence of Control and Support roles.

In PVP, the roles of DPS, Support and Control already exist. Certainly, most Apex predator builds blend 1 or more of the other, but when players clamoured for more hybrid builds, Arenanet answered, for better or worse. As examples:

• Triple stance Hammer Longbow Warrior – High Control and DPS, extremely tanky. Weaknesses: Being outnumbered.
• Spirit Ranger – High teamfight Support with Spirit procs, sustained DPS. Weaknesses: AOE DPS, Stunlocks
• Condi Necromancer – High teamfight Control and extreme condition DPS, yet weak to Control and burst DPS
• Thief – High mobility DPS. S/P offers extreme down-state control/denial, D/P focuses on creating uneven fights – and uneven numbers by eliminating people from a fight. Shadow Refuge is Support. Extreme mobility. Weaknesses: Mostly single target focus, little Support.
• Bunker Guardian – Extreme Support and down state control. Weaknesses: virtually no DPS means you have no counterpressure. Your defense is reactive instead of proactive as a result.

For PVE these aspects are almost completely absent.

At present, 2 major factors prevent the other two pillars – Support and Control – from having any “teeth” in an otherwise DPS, DPS, DPS oriented gametype of PVE

• Bosses (and some mobs) hit slowly, but when they hit they hit hard. This allows players to use active defenses to far greater effect than would otherwise be possible. This cuts out the Support role because taking any damage is super deadly – whereas Support is used to mitigate damage taken and/or heal.
  • There’s no point healing or supporting when the person you’re trying to heal is downed anyway, and rallies at a higher percentage of HP. Rezzing or rallying off tags with more DPS is ironically better support which just boggles the mind.

• Defiance was introduced to remove stunlocking bosses to death as a band-aid fix that still continues today. The Queens Gauntlet does not have Defiance and players are still similarly challenged – yet dungeon bosses still use the Defiance mechanic when developers have proven themselves wrong. Granted, they had to give the Gauntlet bosses certain immunities, but the mechanic is so toxic to the Control archetype that it may as well not exist.
  • Interrupting Boss attacks after having gone through all stacks of Defiance is completely unrewarding when bosses simply get up and perform the attack anyway. There are no cooldowns to watch or interrupt, or boss “Heals” that need interruption. Why take longer to down a boss with Control when you can simply use More DPS and shorten the encounter so there’s less attacks?
  • With the removal of any role Control may have played, DPS is indirect control by shortening encounters and thus minimising the number of boss attacks. DPS is love, DPS is life, and so on.

The unfortunate thing is that to fix these overbearing problems would require a complete rework of most mob AI and redesign of pretty much every PVE encounter. It is thus easier for Arenanet to instead nerf Critical Damage to lengthen encounters and make the Support and Control roles more necessary. It’s a band-aid fix on top of another band-aid fix, but at least it’s something to bring back their alternative trinity. That being said, DPS will still be all the Support and Control you need because the underlying mechanics have not changed. Until the mechanics change, there is no trinity. There is only DPS.

Acaro.4067:

Well, I think GW2s PvE could work if they just focus on giving PvE mobs better tooös and improve their AI. Look at PvP, it works there, too. Why? Because of CCs, the need to finish of enemys, condition damage that every build needs to adress in some ways, cause you get debuffed, because the enemys use buffs that you need to cleanse etc.

In my opinion GW2s greatest potential lies in build experimenting, lile in GW1, but you need build diverdity and changes for that. I don’t think I’m the only player that took a break for over a year because of that. And then, when we have that build diversity, we need greatly rewardong content that is incredible hard, so that the players are forced to push their builds and skills to the utmost limits.

Yes, this post is a more concise summary of why PVE should be closer to PVP. The mechanics of PVE support a DPS race meta right now because PVE features:

• Little to no CC. One can easily complete a dungeon or world boss without any Stability uptime or stunbreaks/immobilise cleanses. This leaves more room for players to slot more offense. There is little motivation otherwise. Why build defensively when the mechanics are so forgiving?

• Zero down state control. The Rally mechanic in PVE is woefully one-dimensional: DPS mobs so downed player can tag for Rally.
  Although this mechanic is mirrored in PVP in this aspect, down state control in other ways is virtually absent in PVE, due to trash mobs having small enough health pools that it really is more efficient time-wise to simply DPS down a mob after a downed player tags it for the Rally mechanic to kick in. PVE mobs also have no Downed state. In PVP, there are no trash mobs. Even minions, Spirits, Turrets, Spirit weapons, etc. etc do not trigger the Rally mechanic. Only players do, and player downed health in PVP can last a pretty long time in the absence of corpse cleave.
  • This means that teams in PVP have to make choices – sacrifice a team member to go for a stomp on a downed enemy? Cleave the body to deny rezzing? Or simply leave it be and CC away players that attempt to try a rez? This complete absence of downed state control and decision making in PVE in lieu of Moar DPS is why PVE players joining WvW or PVP for the first time perform so poorly – they have literally zero experience with dealing with down state control.
  • If every mob had survivability mechanics similar to that of players (dodge, short duration/long CD invulns, Block, Aegis, Blind) and indeed, with some mobs even having a Downed State that other mobs try to rez, the whole design of PVE encounters would change to accommodate this mechanic – for the better. It is baffling that Arenanet would introduce this mechanic of literally game changine importance to adversarial modes – PvP, WvW – yet leave it entirely absent in PVE – to the detriment of PvE players looking to transition. I’d argue that it is one of those “hidden” factors for the PVP population being so low – with the rest of the game literally teaching absolutely nothing about Down State Control, joining an adversarial mode where such a mechanikittenerally swings fights is so daunting as to make the barrier of entry too steep to bear.

• Conditions, Boons, Heals. In PVE, mobs have little to no Condition, Boon, or Healing output, if any, at all. This makes them literal punching bags because in the absence of these mechanics, what else is there for a PVE player to play with and against except DPS? PVE Players have no need to Poison the mobs Heal skill, or rip their Boons (Except Defiance…oh wait, boss skills have no cooldown so rupts are useless), or cleanse their condition output. This leaves most “meta” PVE builds being all out offense with each defensive input being considered a “sacrifice”. In an actual fight, top PVE DPS builds would literally get wrecked in seconds because they have no defensive mechanics outside of dodge.
  • It goes without saying that introducing these neglected mechanics to mobs in PVE would do a lot to raising the skill floor of GW2 in general to the betterment of the community. It’s one thing to be “accessible” to the lowest common denominator; it’s another to literally encourage suicidal build-making habits by removing all the threats a full-DPS build faces in lieu of instituting mechanics that all scream, DPS, DPS, DPS.

@All the comments about not splitting PvE and PvP but making PvE reflect PvP’s mechanics.

I fully agree with the sentiment.

Defiant/Unshakable was the stupidest thing ever placed in the game. The lack of any real mechanics that are skill or profession specific within mob encounters smacks of a rushed, largely unfinished game.

All that being said, I highly, highly doubt ANet will ever fix PvE.

The problems raised with PvE are nothing new to these forums, and certainly not new to the Devs. But after nearly two years of game development they’ve done nothing (nothing) to address any of the issues.

All that to say, I think skill splitting is the only chance we have to make PvE a viable gamestate apart from USE ALL THE DEEPS!

@MonMalthias: You, Sir, are my hero, it´s incredible how much time you put into this forum topic, it´s really great that someone “stands up” and writes down exactly whats wrong with GW2. Many players notice it, many complain, but most of the people who exactly know what needs to be done are too lazy to do what you´re doing here. Maybe you should put that PvE mirroring PvP topic and the fact that the content is too easy into the opening post and change this topics title to “Everything that´s wrong with GW2” and basically make it one giant pool of perfectly comiled feedback for Anet.

It would be really nice to get a sign that Anet is still following this thread and didn´t just read the first two pages

Abe Kleine.3568:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, MonMalthias.4763! This post is exactly what we talk about when we mention formatting and concise feedback. Even though it’s a lot to take in, you do a great job of separating the ideas and making it easy to navigate.

I will be passing this on to the team to think about!

I feel like they WILL have an official response, but it will be more in lines with “Well, balancing is HAAAAAARD and it take a SUUUUUPER long time” lot’s of whining and excuse making instead of actions

Basically this ^^

I highly doubt anything meaningful will be done to improve professions and combat in this game. Sure, we will get more trait related stuff (again and again), a few new weapons for professions to use, but that’s probably about it. Aside from the die hards, most players will look back at this beautiful game with some interesting mechanics and say it was a waste of potential, playtime and $.

MonMalthias.4763:

I strongly disagree with the sentiment that proper balance requires a separation of PVE and PVP, that widespread splits are somehow better for the game. snip

You can disagree, but you can equally ask the unreasonable. What you’re talking about would require not only a complete rewrite of the AI in the game, but also a lot of time, both planning and development, a lot of testing, and a lot of effort in general between multiple teams, which equates to a lot of money in the business world. Not to mention quite a bit of the things you suggested do not work outside of paper, unless you know something we don’t and can successfully create real artificial intelligence to place inside a video game. You’re asking, essentially, for mobs to able to res themselves, dodge, and attack in various, random ways, all that require conscious thought.

As harsh as it sounds, it isn’t as though I don’t appreciate the sentiments, and agree, but what I’m asking for is not only more reasonable, but exceedingly simpler.

Another huge factor is the discrepancy between the frequency of attacks in PvE vs PvP.

In PvP, even when you’re facing a single enemy, you’ll be showered with constant harassment through auto-attacks that you can’t possibly avoid through dodges alone, and this is what makes mitigation/sustain factor into the PvP build-making process, and why balanced builds tend to do better overall in sPvP than extreme DPS-oriented builds.

In PvE, most mobs literally pause seconds between attacks, as if waiting for you to regenerate enough endurance for another dodge, and each attack hits an often ridiculous amount of health in higher level PvE content, making sustain/mitigation almost irrelevant and DPS the king, since you can and often MUST dodge any and all attacks coming your way.

Significantly reducing the damage of mob attacks and increasing their attack frequency proportionally is what I think would be the easiest and most efficient fix for increasing PvE build diversity.

Kaon.7192:

Significantly reducing the damage of mob attacks and increasing their attack frequency proportionally is what I think would be the easiest and most efficient fix for increasing PvE build diversity.

this could be a possibility to make it at least better than now with little effort of changing something drasticly, but i doubt it would be a long term solution.
Imo this will only affact solo playing content in PvE like leveling and personal story but it won’t resolve in huge changes in dungeons, fractals etc. but i could be wrong

constantLogic.3486:

MonMalthias.4763:

I strongly disagree with the sentiment that proper balance requires a separation of PVE and PVP, that widespread splits are somehow better for the game. snip

You can disagree, but you can equally ask the unreasonable. What you’re talking about would require not only a complete rewrite of the AI in the game, but also a lot of time, both planning and development, a lot of testing, and a lot of effort in general between multiple teams, which equates to a lot of money in the business world. Not to mention quite a bit of the things you suggested do not work outside of paper, unless you know something we don’t and can successfully create real artificial intelligence to place inside a video game. You’re asking, essentially, for mobs to able to res themselves, dodge, and attack in various, random ways, all that require conscious thought.

As harsh as it sounds, it isn’t as though I don’t appreciate the sentiments, and agree, but what I’m asking for is not only more reasonable, but exceedingly simpler.

I’ll refer you to Kaon’s post, which expanded on my point of mobs attacking too infrequently:

Kaon.7192:

Another huge factor is the discrepancy between the frequency of attacks in PvE vs PvP.

In PvP, even when you’re facing a single enemy, you’ll be showered with constant harassment through auto-attacks that you can’t possibly avoid through dodges alone, and this is what makes mitigation/sustain factor into the PvP build-making process, and why balanced builds tend to do better overall in sPvP than extreme DPS-oriented builds.

In PvE, most mobs literally pause seconds between attacks, as if waiting for you to regenerate enough endurance for another dodge, and each attack hits an often ridiculous amount of health in higher level PvE content, making sustain/mitigation almost irrelevant and DPS the king, since you can and often MUST dodge any and all attacks coming your way.

Significantly reducing the damage of mob attacks and increasing their attack frequency proportionally is what I think would be the easiest and most efficient fix for increasing PvE build diversity.

This change alone would do a lot more to bring up the needs for Support and Control as CC becomes important for denying a lot of the incoming harassment damage from mobs; and Support would be needed to mitigate or heal past that kind of “background” damage. Most importantly, it requires glassy DPS builds build more defensively, which will already do so much more than the Ferocity change ever will.

Indeed with the Ferocity change included, this may have the effect of extending combat encounters to the point at which Support and Control do have actual roles on a group.

Obviously the points I delineated on my other post about implementing cross-mob type combos and CC and Condition and Boon output can and should be a long term goal to strive for, but increased attack speed and decreased spike damage output would already do a lot to alter the DPS DPS DPS paradigm that is so dominant right now.

MonMalthias.4763:

Obviously the points I delineated on my other post about implementing cross-mob type combos and CC and Condition and Boon output can and should be a long term goal to strive for, but increased attack speed and decreased spike damage output would already do a lot to alter the DPS DPS DPS paradigm that is so dominant right now.

While I think increasing the attackspeed would solve some problems, I highly doubt that it could break the “zerk and stack” meta in dungeons. We would need an AI overhaul, so that the mobs punish the player for stacking and putting only zerker into a group.
Tl;dr: Mobs have to behave more like real players.

But I can think of a way to stop stacking in general, I’ll leave a link if someone is interested.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/How2-solve-Stacking-and-Zerging-without-nerfs/first#post3823415

I definitely think giving mobs active defenses is the key to closing the PvP/PvE divide. Pumping up a mob’s HP ends up feeling like a poor man’s substitute. Actives defenses offer so many approaches and decisions to make, while excessive HP prettymuch offers only one.

I don’t agree that this necessarily has to equate to some kind of horrendous AI nightmare. The AI doesn’t have to actually be intelligent, it just has to perform an adequate mimicry.

Taking a page out of Nike’s book from the Ranger CDI (and scribbling all over it): What if higher rank NPCs had an endurance bar and also the behavior – ‘If takes more than x% of HP in a single blow or cumulatively during a channeled effect; then dodge in a random direction’.

This is behavior built on existing tech, that mimics an intelligent reaction to most situations we would casually categorize as dangerous. But it’s very simple stuff, that has the potential to affect things more deeply. Such Control serving to compliment Burst by ‘steadying’ the mob, and DoTs’ low n’ slow approach becoming more valuable because it’s less likely to make the mob skiddish.

I’m not saying that’s the magic answer to life the universe and everything.
But I am saying simple solutions can have big impacts when it comes to AI.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Taking a page out of Nike’s book from the Ranger CDI (and scribbling all over it): What if higher rank NPCs had and endurance bar and also the behavior – ‘If takes more than x% of HP in a single blow; then dodge in a random direction’.

Hey, at least you read it (and clearly understood the implications).

I’m really not sure if the Devs read it or not. That thread was not a shining example of the CDI process.

I thought you were on fire in that thread.
kitten shame much didn’t seem to come of it.

Vox Hollow.2736:

I thought you were on fire in that thread.
kitten shame much didn’t seem to come of it.

The CDI thread was all over the place. The devs didn’t direct it whatsoever. The only things they’ve said where mediocre at its best. The Pet = Brick in a house example still hurts though…

MonMalthias.4763:

snip

Sorry, but I’m not certain at all what that had to do with anything I said? I mean, sure, of course, I already agreed that the AI could use a bit of work, but let me just repeat everything I previously stated (bolding the part where it would take time and money, not to mention a complete AI rewrite) without typing my post in its entirety again.

Plus, with what you’re saying, what you want is both shoehorning people into the traditional trinity roles, which this game does not support, and thus closing building diversity, which was something the devs wanted from the beginning (and lost their way about). I’m really not for that happening. If anything I want more builds for more classes which, at present state of things, requires different balancing. This also doesn’t mean that I want only flat dps to matter, but again, we’re talking everything I mentioned before, and ease of incorporation. With simply changing AI, and doing nothing to balance the classes, except expecting to hole them into traditional roles they can’t fill because the game wasn’t made for it, that’s asking for a world of pain.

Nike.2631:

Hey, at least you read it (and clearly understood the implications).

It was an amazingly good suggestion. One of the best in the thread.

Nike.2631:

I’m really not sure if the Devs read it or not. That thread was not a shining example of the CDI process.

Lack of communication only leads to speculation, much of it negative.

@constantLogic

I feel like your talking about much the same things as MonMalthias, but are coming at it from a different angle. If I’m understanding correctly, what your saying is that PvE and PvP are not compatible in terms of balance currently. In this point both you and MonMalthias are in agreement.

You recognize this and seem to advocating a greater separation between the different game modes in order to create more balance within each mode. MonMalthias instead advocates that there should be less separation between the different game modes, achieved primarily by unifying the mechanics that occur within those game modes.

I generally agree with MonMalthias on this one in that making PvE closer to PvP will create a greater build variety within PvE apart from dps/dps/dps that is currently seen. I do agree with you that it will not be easy to achieve this, but it would also be difficult to achieve and maintain balance with three completely separated game modes.

Hoping that the devs respond to this thread again, or even in a livestream

Answering different points mentionned above :
*PvE/PvP: Toxic Alliance are integrating a more “dynamic” gameplay, and some mobs in EoTM are also taking a more “player-like” skill rotation. I don’t think they can easily change current mobs, but I expect them to integrate more of these. (maybe they are test to know what players feel about this new mechanic…

• Mob dodge : what is the use of a dodge after getting hit? Would it be for the pet, or a mob, it does no good. No solution really satisfactory.
• Faster/more consistent mob AA: would already be nice; once again toxic alliance were good at it.

I’m mostly a WvW player, but I found toxic alliance were nice to fight (compared with the usual mobs). Taking a pack of those mobs was somewhat challenging, compared with the usual content, and I sure wish Anet would implement more things like it, cause it helps bridge that gap between PvE and PvP and it might demand something else than “big numberz” to win the fight.

The ranger pet idea is a different thing, don’t let the stuff I’m saying misrepresent it.

So, yeah, a mob dodging halfway through a Hundred Blades is not exactly ideal defense. But you do create opportunities to use things that currently have no or little meaning in PvE. Which is really what you should be looking for when trying to close the divide between PvE and PvP to make balancing between the modes easier.

Giving mobs active defenses should kind of be less about actually making mobs peerless self-defenders, and more about homogenizing mechanics between PvP and PvE.

Truthfully, most of Scarlet’s armies are pretty well-designed on the NPC front. Aetherblades use boons, CC, and even invulnerabilities, Toxic Alliance hit rapidly, use/cleanse conditions, and evade attacks/use reflections, Twisted Watchworks use a mix of CC, conditions, and direct damage, and Molten Alliance compliments buffs and vuln stacking with damage and blinds/CC.

The biggest issue is that most of the bosses are not like this. Reworking just the bosses is much easier than reworking all of PvE, but enemies that do these things need to become more common.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Truthfully, most of Scarlet’s armies are pretty well-designed on the NPC front. Aetherblades use boons, CC, and even invulnerabilities, Toxic Alliance hit rapidly, use/cleanse conditions, and evade attacks/use reflections, Twisted Watchworks use a mix of CC, conditions, and direct damage, and Molten Alliance compliments buffs and vuln stacking with damage and blinds/CC.

The biggest issue is that most of the bosses are not like this. Reworking just the bosses is much easier than reworking all of PvE, but enemies that do these things need to become more common.

You are right about the “new mob-design” but also this events were just a “spamming wars” without proper roll distribution. in those massive fights you mostly just care about yourself and maybe downed player(assuming they are in no guilds, parties etc.)
in PvP this might all work because the fighting times are way less than fighting a boss, veteran, champion. so supportive-focused player are/will be still underwhelming in comperision with pure DPSplayer

constantLogic.3486:

MonMalthias.4763:

snip

Sorry, but I’m not certain at all what that had to do with anything I said? I mean, sure, of course, I already agreed that the AI could use a bit of work, but let me just repeat everything I previously stated (bolding the part where it would take time and money, not to mention a complete AI rewrite) without typing my post in its entirety again.

Plus, with what you’re saying, what you want is both shoehorning people into the traditional trinity roles, which this game does not support, and thus closing building diversity, which was something the devs wanted from the beginning (and lost their way about). I’m really not for that happening. If anything I want more builds for more classes which, at present state of things, requires different balancing. This also doesn’t mean that I want only flat dps to matter, but again, we’re talking everything I mentioned before, and ease of incorporation. With simply changing AI, and doing nothing to balance the classes, except expecting to hole them into traditional roles they can’t fill because the game wasn’t made for it, that’s asking for a world of pain.

I think there’s some misinterpretation here regarding the changes needed to bring Control and Support roles back to PVE by making it closer to PVP. At no point did I mean to imply that I wanted a return of traditional trinity roles of DPS, Healer, Tank – nor did I wish for build diversity to somehow be limited to these three roles; however mistaken. What I meant to say is that in PVP, there do exist roles besides DPS – and they are, indeed, Control and Support as originally delineated in GW2’s “alternative trinity” claims; albeit hybridised somewhat.

By bringing in CC, by bringing in Condition and Boon output to mobs, the need – but not the requirement – for Control and Supporty builds rises. By increasing the rate of boss and mob attack whilst decreasing damage output, active defense becomes less effective, and Support becomes more critical in mitigating damage.

In no way did I mean to imply that I somehow wanted a return to original trinity roles. I’m not sure where you got that from, but I would like to see a direct quote from a post of mine demonstrating that.

dukevonart.2691:

@constantLogic

I feel like your talking about much the same things as MonMalthias, but are coming at it from a different angle. If I’m understanding correctly, what your saying is that PvE and PvP are not compatible in terms of balance currently. In this point both you and MonMalthias are in agreement.

You recognize this and seem to advocating a greater separation between the different game modes in order to create more balance within each mode. MonMalthias instead advocates that there should be less separation between the different game modes, achieved primarily by unifying the mechanics that occur within those game modes.

I generally agree with MonMalthias on this one in that making PvE closer to PvP will create a greater build variety within PvE apart from dps/dps/dps that is currently seen. I do agree with you that it will not be easy to achieve this, but it would also be difficult to achieve and maintain balance with three completely separated game modes.

This is pretty much what I was trying to get at with my posts regarding mob AI, condition, CC and Boon output.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Truthfully, most of Scarlet’s armies are pretty well-designed on the NPC front. Aetherblades use boons, CC, and even invulnerabilities, Toxic Alliance hit rapidly, use/cleanse conditions, and evade attacks/use reflections, Twisted Watchworks use a mix of CC, conditions, and direct damage, and Molten Alliance compliments buffs and vuln stacking with damage and blinds/CC.

The biggest issue is that most of the bosses are not like this. Reworking just the bosses is much easier than reworking all of PvE, but enemies that do these things need to become more common.

Drarnor Kunoram has the right of it here. Aetherblades in particular were a refreshing change of pace from the traditional GW2 punching bags – and it’s kind of sad that I would call them punching bags in the first place – but with their uses of Boons, Static Field and Shocking Auras along with Immobilise and followup rapid attacks – these were appropriately challenging. Still not to the degree to require Support and Control in any way – but challenging still. I might have actually needed to heal up sometimes.

The problem remains that older content such as in dungeons have not been updated to this – albeit interim – standard at all. Bosses in particular seem to follow the good old punching bag with big slow attacks concept and the Wurm is sadly not too much different – albeit with new mechanics that require greater co-ordination; specialised Control and Support still have little role. Indeed, full DPS classes can still grant good Support simply by dint of Combo Fields and Finishers whilst the attacks hit super hard; which marginalises any role Support players may wish to play.

One major thing that I also find is missing from PVE is that a lot of monsters have no heals in lieu of simply having a massive health pool. This is despite the fact that most outcomes in adversarial combat (PVP, WVW) are decided largely upon the Poisoning of, or the Interruption of, the Healing skill. Without a heal skill to Interrupt, even Defiance-less bosses have no susceptibility to Control; as there is no reward for shortening the encounter by applying Control effects.

I believe that the best lessons to be learned here by the designers of PVE content is simply to look to the PVP map Legacy of the Foefire. An analogue of the Fort Aspenwood GVG battles of yore , the map features 3 control points but more importantly, it features a keep on both ends of the map with a Guild Lord, 2 Casters, and 2 Guards. The Guards have an Immobilise and Stun skill; whilst the Casters have Projectile destruction (Swirling Winds). Most importantly, the Guild Lord himself has a heal skill you can interrupt to shorten the fight significantly. This is tech and scripting already in game for PVP yet conspicuously absent from every other area in PVE. Implementing mob heals for certain encounters would already do much to port that essential adversarial flavour needed over to PVE and most importantly, teach players essential mechanics related to Poison and Interrupt in the course of their normal play.

The biggest reason why PVE is so divorced from the rest of the game is because most of the time, the mechanics are nothing like the adversarial modes at all in any way, shape or form. Bringing the two sides closer together not only has the potential to make a better, more interesting game – it also obviates the need for widespread skill splits – because making a skill weaker in adversarial modes will always be felt in PVE if both were similar in overall mechanics.

MonMalthias.4763:

One major thing that I also find is missing from PVE is that a lot of monsters have no heals in lieu of simply having a massive health pool. This is despite the fact that most outcomes in adversarial combat (PVP, WVW) are decided largely upon the Poisoning of, or the Interruption of, the Healing skill. Without a heal skill to Interrupt, even Defiance-less bosses have no susceptibility to Control; as there is no reward for shortening the encounter by applying Control effects.

you have the right idea here but i think just making control effects, interrupts etc. useful won’t be the solution. Don’t get me wrong i would like to see more of this mechanics aswell to be rewarding but this are things you can do even with a full DPS build, so it is literally not nessesary for you to have a supportive build just to achieve this.

to make full support viable you have to make them do a crutial job in the group which is almost needed to reach the goal or is at least making it way easier or faster.
If you just do the thing you mentioned above a supportive player would prolong the encounter because he lacks damage compared to a full DPS build with the possibility of doing the same but with way more damage output

dukevonart.2691:

@constantLogic

I feel like your talking about much the same things as MonMalthias, but are coming at it from a different angle. If I’m understanding correctly, what your saying is that PvE and PvP are not compatible in terms of balance currently. In this point both you and MonMalthias are in agreement.

You recognize this and seem to advocating a greater separation between the different game modes in order to create more balance within each mode. MonMalthias instead advocates that there should be less separation between the different game modes, achieved primarily by unifying the mechanics that occur within those game modes.

I generally agree with MonMalthias on this one in that making PvE closer to PvP will create a greater build variety within PvE apart from dps/dps/dps that is currently seen. I do agree with you that it will not be easy to achieve this, but it would also be difficult to achieve and maintain balance with three completely separated game modes.

There needs to be way more work done on pve to bring more people back to it other than simply “make it more like pvp.” You have to account for people soloing, or very limited parties that don’t include a main DPSer like war, for example. There’s a reason why the only honestly viable options left to most are guard, ele, and war. It’s a depressing state that could be band-aided by upping the damage even further on things not flat-dps (condis) to compensate to some degree for the larger health pools, or providing a decent flat dps build for every class while they worked on a better solution, but like I’ve said over and over, it would require a split of pve and pvp balance, which I still firmly believe is necessary., if not permanently then until real progress to provide balance across all modes is made. Not once have I argued the need for a better AI, but I will also stand by what’s being proposed here is near absolutely out of the question as it would require a rewrite of the AI, or at the very least a very good, hard look, and that’s just not something they’re going to do. The game is out, and has been out for a long time now, and I see people asking for work on things that would not immediately generate revenue.

With all that being said, I can tell I’m not getting anywhere as far as discussion, so I’ll respectfully agree that the AI and skills need to be looked at, while respectfully disagreeing that such drastic measures will ever be taken on this game. I’ve watched as they continually moved further and further away from what made this game enjoyable for me, and I can say with some reasonable degree of certainty that they don’t give enough of a care to do much more than what I’ve suggested, if even that as they haven’t even cared a wit as they pushed, for example, necro further and further out of ever being viable in pve to the point that it’s become a punchline and grimace more than a respectable class (please remember I’m speaking strictly pve here). I wish they did, but you’re all honestly expecting too much from them.

May I be pleasantly surprised, and at the very least receive a cleave.

constantLogic.3486:

dukevonart.2691:

@constantLogic

snip

There needs to be way more work done on pve to bring more people back to it other than simply “make it more like pvp.” You have to account for people soloing, or very limited parties that don’t include a main DPSer like war, for example. There’s a reason why the only honestly viable options left to most are guard, ele, and war. It’s a depressing state that could be band-aided by upping the damage even further on things not flat-dps (condis) to compensate to some degree for the larger health pools, or providing a decent flat dps build for every class while they worked on a better solution, but like I’ve said over and over, it would require a split of pve and pvp balance, which I still firmly believe is necessary., if not permanently then until real progress to provide balance across all modes is made. Not once have I argued the need for a better AI, but I will also stand by what’s being proposed here is near absolutely out of the question as it would require a rewrite of the AI, or at the very least a very good, hard look, and that’s just not something they’re going to do. The game is out, and has been out for a long time now, and I see people asking for work on things that would not immediately generate revenue.

Here’s the thing. In PVP, every single profession has a role. Even Necromancer and Ranger – oft-maligned – they play roles and can run builds that provide a team with the tools they need for success. That Rangers and Necromancers are niche in PVE is because the mechanics they were designed for – sustained hybrid direct/condi DPS with survivability through range control (or evade frames in melee) for Ranger; and Condition manipulation as well as strong support and/or damage through Wells for Necromancer. Indeed, Ranger and Necromancers have had an entrenched place as the fourth and fifth member in most teams since Quickness was nerfed as combat has shifted to a slower pace.

constantLogic.3486:

With all that being said, I can tell I’m not getting anywhere as far as discussion, so I’ll respectfully agree that the AI and skills need to be looked at, while respectfully disagreeing that such drastic measures will ever be taken on this game. I’ve watched as they continually moved further and further away from what made this game enjoyable for me, and I can say with some reasonable degree of certainty that they don’t give enough of a care to do much more than what I’ve suggested, if even that as they haven’t even cared a wit as they pushed, for example, necro further and further out of ever being viable in pve to the point that it’s become a punchline and grimace more than a respectable class (please remember I’m speaking strictly pve here). I wish they did, but you’re all honestly expecting too much from them.

May I be pleasantly surprised, and at the very least receive a cleave.

At the risk of going off topic, I will say this: Making PVE closer to PVP will actually make classes like Ranger and Necromancer have greater impact. Part of doing that means reducing the huge health pools of mobs to be replaced by heals, boons and other active defenses. That Ranger and Necromancer have extremely high sustained damage – often hybrid between direct and condition – will only be supplemented by these sustained damage outputs over-riding mob boons, heals and active defenses instead of huge health pools emphasising huge Critical Damage hits to reduce in appreciable time. Indeed, full DPS Warriors, Thieves died with the end of the Quickness meta as the loss of Quickness meant that Warriors no longer could 100blades or Heartseeker everything to death before active defenses could kick in. This is what is meant by bringing PVE closer to PVP.

As for Necromancers receiving cleave, that is a thread all of its own. I would suggest that you start one; I know that there are more than a few PVE Necromancers out there that would be ecstatic at the implementation of such. Having said that, the whole stack-and-cleave phenomenon is something that can only be eliminated – and for good reason – if the mechanics of dungeons change from being a slog (or a skip) through rewardless trash mobs on the way to the boss; to something closer to Path of Exile where every mob has potentially useful loot; and fully clearing maps is always more rewarding than just skipping to the boss.

MonMalthias.4763:

constantLogic.3486:

dukevonart.2691:

@constantLogic

snip

There needs to be way more work done on pve to bring more people back to it other than simply “make it more like pvp.” You have to account for people soloing, or very limited parties that don’t include a main DPSer like war, for example. There’s a reason why the only honestly viable options left to most are guard, ele, and war. It’s a depressing state that could be band-aided by upping the damage even further on things not flat-dps (condis) to compensate to some degree for the larger health pools, or providing a decent flat dps build for every class while they worked on a better solution, but like I’ve said over and over, it would require a split of pve and pvp balance, which I still firmly believe is necessary., if not permanently then until real progress to provide balance across all modes is made. Not once have I argued the need for a better AI, but I will also stand by what’s being proposed here is near absolutely out of the question as it would require a rewrite of the AI, or at the very least a very good, hard look, and that’s just not something they’re going to do. The game is out, and has been out for a long time now, and I see people asking for work on things that would not immediately generate revenue.

Here’s the thing. In PVP, every single profession has a role. Even Necromancer and Ranger – oft-maligned – they play roles and can run builds that provide a team with the tools they need for success. That Rangers and Necromancers are niche in PVE is because the mechanics they were designed for – sustained hybrid direct/condi DPS with survivability through range control (or evade frames in melee) for Ranger; and Condition manipulation as well as strong support and/or damage through Wells for Necromancer. Indeed, Ranger and Necromancers have had an entrenched place as the fourth and fifth member in most teams since Quickness was nerfed as combat has shifted to a slower pace.

constantLogic.3486:

With all that being said, I can tell I’m not getting anywhere as far as discussion, so I’ll respectfully agree that the AI and skills need to be looked at, while respectfully disagreeing that such drastic measures will ever be taken on this game. I’ve watched as they continually moved further and further away from what made this game enjoyable for me, and I can say with some reasonable degree of certainty that they don’t give enough of a care to do much more than what I’ve suggested, if even that as they haven’t even cared a wit as they pushed, for example, necro further and further out of ever being viable in pve to the point that it’s become a punchline and grimace more than a respectable class (please remember I’m speaking strictly pve here). I wish they did, but you’re all honestly expecting too much from them.

May I be pleasantly surprised, and at the very least receive a cleave.

At the risk of going off topic, I will say this: Making PVE closer to PVP will actually make classes like Ranger and Necromancer have greater impact. Part of doing that means reducing the huge health pools of mobs to be replaced by heals, boons and other active defenses. That Ranger and Necromancer have extremely high sustained damage – often hybrid between direct and condition – will only be supplemented by these sustained damage outputs over-riding mob boons, heals and active defenses instead of huge health pools emphasising huge Critical Damage hits to reduce in appreciable time. Indeed, full DPS Warriors, Thieves died with the end of the Quickness meta as the loss of Quickness meant that Warriors no longer could 100blades or Heartseeker everything to death before active defenses could kick in. This is what is meant by bringing PVE closer to PVP.

As for Necromancers receiving cleave, that is a thread all of its own. I would suggest that you start one; I know that there are more than a few PVE Necromancers out there that would be ecstatic at the implementation of such. Having said that, the whole stack-and-cleave phenomenon is something that can only be eliminated – and for good reason – if the mechanics of dungeons change from being a slog (or a skip) through rewardless trash mobs on the way to the boss; to something closer to Path of Exile where every mob has potentially useful loot; and fully clearing maps is always more rewarding than just skipping to the boss.

Ever thought about joining Anets game design team?

This is a well thought out, brilliant post.

I would trade the entirety of the upcoming feature patch for even half of the suggestions in this thread making it into the game.

Seriously OP this post is magnificent. I feel this is one of the BEST threads i have read on the forums in a very very long time. bugs go on for far too long now. The PvP meta has been pretty stagnant for months now. Certain skills are far too powerful and are being addressed at too slow of a pace.

And of course my biggest gripe that you pointed out: bugs.
sigils and runes have had bug go unfixed for a very long time. i remember on a ready up they mentioned ranger runes and their #6 is bugged to not work. I wonder WHY they didn’t find the fix and immediately patch it and other problems. it felt as though they felt those crucial fixes are so unimportant to save it all for some feature patch 2 months down the line. it is honestly frustrating and i’m glad that your post has reached them.

MonMalthias.4763:

~snip~
As for Necromancers receiving cleave, that is a thread all of its own. I would suggest that you start one; I know that there are more than a few PVE Necromancers out there that would be ecstatic at the implementation of such. Having said that, the whole stack-and-cleave phenomenon is something that can only be eliminated – and for good reason – if the mechanics of dungeons change from being a slog (or a skip) through rewardless trash mobs on the way to the boss; to something closer to Path of Exile where every mob has potentially useful loot; and fully clearing maps is always more rewarding than just skipping to the boss.

The Necro subform is as dead as…well, a Necro. It’s not seen any substantial interaction from Devs in months. And the cleave issue has been beat to death there anyway.

I’ve fully in favor of changing open world and dungeon encounters to match PvP. But does anyone really believe ANet will listen and actually invest the time and energy to fix PvE?

I’d really like to believe they would. But I’m not getting my hopes up.

Really great post.

After watching the GDC presentation, I kind of understand where some of the problem comes from, especially wrt management. Being a “programmer’s company” is as much a detriment as it is a boon, because — for the most part-- programmers are terrible managers.

Programmers don’t want to work on boring things. They want to squeeze that 0.01% optimization out. They want to push new features and fix awesome, noticeable bugs. They get sidetracked spending 99% of their time on something only 1% of people will care about. “Ugh, I have to go back into that part of the engine for this bug? I haven’t touched that in ages! I’d have to familiarize myself with it all over again… I want to work on this other thing!” They lack the overall perspective of the project that a proper manager has, and that causes a lot of the things outlined in this thread.

I mean, as soon as he said that they build all their tools themselves internally, I knew exactly what he meant. Programmers want to program! They want to spend two months building a tool instead of a week incorporating a third party one into their existing workflow. And if there’s a bug or they get stuck? Better rewrite the whole thing!

And all that adds up to an extremely glacial development process that turns your customers bitter. So when someone touts their company as a “company made of programmers,” it’s pretty much saying, “a company with managerial problems.” That sounds worse than I mean it to, but it’s something that’s painfully obvious. There’s a very real lack of focus with the updates being pushed out, and that isn’t the fault of the developers or QA or the design team. It’s a management problem.

I say this as someone who genuinely enjoys this game and is also a programmer. It’s incredibly fun, and I appreciate all the work put into it and all the changes it’s brought to the genre. I just want to vent about some of the frustrating things I’ve noticed and where I believe they stem from.

MonMalthias.4763:

I strongly disagree with the sentiment that proper balance requires a separation of PVE and PVP, that widespread splits are somehow better for the game. For returning or newer players that may wish to participate in more than 1 game mode, and for the developers, introducing and maintaining splits of skills is a nightmare of un-learning muscle memory and re-learning every time one wishes to enter into PVP from PVE or vice versa. It further divides the community in a game that is already so night and day between game modes.

What is needed instead is for PVE to be closer to PVP. This means:

• Smarter, harder AI with skill rotations and synergy between mob types
• Cross mob-type combos that players can read and try to disrupt
• Making fighting “trash” mobs actually rewarding instead of loading all the rewards into the damage sponge boss/veteran/champion and rewarding stealth skipping/teleport skipping mechanics.
• Overall the mechanics should support the emergence of Control and Support roles.

I agree that this is how the game should be, but I am pretty sure arenanet will not under any circumstances go through this pile of nasty work. It’s simply to much at this point and nobody will prepare the necessary budget.

It means they will have to revisit and recode most of their pve content not only to facilitate such changes on a meaningful scale but everything else has to be adapted in order to blend with what will essentailly be a new part of the game.

To the OP,

I am happy that you found the Courage to post this thread. I guess you are not the only one who sees the Problem in the Management and this needs to be adressed.

I would like to add, that the release of GW2 in China will have most likely eaten most of the resources in Management and this lead to the Situation where european/american users got just plain ignored. This is no excuse but on the opposite, an unbelievable outrage. NCSoft also got bought by Nexon, which is just about milking the cow till she’s dead and then selling the bones.
The game also developed from a promised B2P game into a Buy to get Access and then please buy more in the ingame store game. Naturally one had expected to buy add ons and thus finance new horizontal Progression items etc. but the LS made this idea go away.
The items in the Item Store were most QOL and that was ok. But after start of the LS the concentration on the ingame store on every update grow enourmous, even introducing new armor Skins which were believed to be part of the B2P game.
I also believe that it’s a lie, that Anet has actually a real Team working on Balance. If there were such a Team, they would have introduced more Balance patches over the time, just so they seem busy and do not have to be afraid to lose their Job.

The game is currently on life support and LS is financed by the gem store. I just hope that a Change in attitude and Management will happen soon, or the game is lost as the Status of Balance, Item Store and updates reminds me of asia grind games. Making Money out of a nice looking, unsupported bad game.

Escadin.9482:

I agree that this is how the game should be, but I am pretty sure arenanet will not under any circumstances go through this pile of nasty work. It’s simply to much at this point and nobody will prepare the necessary budget.

Though, the budget for splitting more skills and mechanics will be no better than for unifying the game modes.

There’s the compound issue that WvW is the much more promoted game mode, and works a lot different than the sPvP sidedish.

But is unifying the game mods really that much work that it can´t be done? With the newer living story patches we had npcs we needed to stomp etc too, Anet is probably slowly moving into this direction. They develop their systems one by one for the living story content and once they´re satisfied with them they start to apply them to the old dungeons one by one.

Acaro.4067:

But is unifying the game mods really that much work that it can´t be done? With the newer living story patches we had npcs we needed to stomp etc too, Anet is probably slowly moving into this direction. They develop their systems one by one for the living story content and once they´re satisfied with them they start to apply them to the old dungeons one by one.

It starts with reworking every single mob and boss AI and stat-wise in every dungeon/path, then crosses trying to rebalance this mess and finally leads to rework and addition of many quests which are supposed to gate people through the new pve experience.

Did I mention all the bugs this will cause?

Escadin.9482:

Acaro.4067:

But is unifying the game mods really that much work that it can´t be done? With the newer living story patches we had npcs we needed to stomp etc too, Anet is probably slowly moving into this direction. They develop their systems one by one for the living story content and once they´re satisfied with them they start to apply them to the old dungeons one by one.

It starts with reworking every single mob and boss AI and stat-wise in every dungeon/path, then crosses trying to rebalance this mess and finally leads to rework and addition of many quests which are supposed to gate people through the new pve experience.

Did I mention all the bugs this will cause?

Not every mob and boss. Just some of them. A mix between some of the existing mobs and some new ones to replace current ones would be fine.

I actually read up some on Nexon. For sure, it’s important to be a saavy consumer these days. In the future, you keep your eye out for Nexon games, and let other people know they are the doomstick if they get involved in a game you like.

If we as consumers don’t start abandoning ship with a quickness when shady companies get involved in products we like, this will just happen more and more often. Mons op was great, but most likely will be ignored mostly. With the amount of keys he had to press to write that post, he could already have slayed many wizards in (cough cough) Magicka. He certainly would have enjoyed that more than writing that essay. If game management doesn’t want to listen, don’t keep begging them, just dip.

I know that this is about a month old, and that this post has already gotten Dev attention — but I feel the need to chime in anyways. I had to even re-set my password to say this.

I don’t play Guild Wars 2 anymore, and it’s for every single reason that is highlighted in the OP

I also don’t plan on playing regularly again until these things are addressed.

I log on and peruse the forums every now and then because I want guild wars to be what I thought it would be SO BADLY. I have great memories from this game and I remember the feeling of grandeur it filled me with because of all of the possibilities. Instead, I was left frustrated and disappointed for the reasons highlighted in the OP. The feedback was so on point without being condescending or insulting — it spoke directly of the facts, and that’s why I was drawn in.

Thanks a lot for being a voice of the community of sorts MonMalthias. At least I know you were speaking for me when you made this post.

Here’s to hoping it is taken very seriously by the management (and then subsequently bleeds down to the devs). If it’s not, I will likely never play again, and I fear other players may start to follow suit.

Back to the Top!

Allie Murdock.8152:

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, MonMalthias.4763! This post is exactly what we talk about when we mention formatting and concise feedback. Even though it’s a lot to take in, you do a great job of separating the ideas and making it easy to navigate.

I will be passing this on to the team to think about!

Have I read this right?
Is this really an ANet Community Liason suggesting the people that modify GW2 classes stop by the GW2 Profession Balance forum to check out one of its most viewed threads?
Surely they would be doing this already?

Zenguy.6421:

Surely they would be doing this already?

You would think so, but today’s patch happened.

So probably not.

Allie is gone, so who will lobby for us now?!

Dev plz respond prove this is still relevant.