Guild Wars 2

Gaile Gray.6029:

I talked to a couple of the devs just now, and they told me this is a subject they’re still reviewing and considering how best to address. It’s part of a larger discussion, as you can imagine, and changes would necessarily involve a few elements, not just condition caps alone.

While there aren’t details on changes or a timeframe in which they would be done, you can be sure that this is being reviewed by the devs and considered as part of the big picture and potential adjustments in the future.

Understood and I understand that that things take time. But the topic of condition capping and condition builds being undervalued is nothing new. Im sure there has been an ardent discussion about it. But again, no action after…well over a year, if not since the games launch in August 2012.

We have mentioned this many times in the past…yet no work on it?

But we are given a new currency conversion system that no one asked for?

Where are your development priorities(not you, but arenanet as a whole)? Are actually listening to what we are saying here, or just saying you are?

Gaile Gray.6029:

I talked to a couple of the devs just now, and they told me this is a subject they’re still reviewing and considering how best to address. It’s part of a larger discussion, as you can imagine, and changes would necessarily involve a few elements, not just condition caps alone.

While there aren’t details on changes or a timeframe in which they would be done, you can be sure that this is being reviewed by the devs and considered as part of the big picture and potential adjustments in the future.

I too thank you for the candor. Its good to at least know what is going on. but 2 years working on a serious problem? I say this tongue in cheek, but has anyone on the team ever considered a run for congress?

Welcome to 2012 beta.
Can dev provide an update since 2 years please?

Judging by Gaile’s response… I wouldn’t put my hopes on a solution for condition at least till Q3-Q4 2015 (and that would be the best scenario)

I think they may as well just get rid of it in PvE really. All it does at the moment is reduce build diversity due to shutting out half the weapons.

I mean, it might sound extreme, but is this problem actually fixable? It’s been two years.

Dunno, but ANet has been experimenting with Mob variety on Mordrem, Giant Beetles and Legendary Sand Giant.

Before that they added Karka, most interesting ones being Veteran Karka.

These mobs atleast offer good targets for use of Conditions, since you cannot kill these mobs that fast as others.

dekou.6012:

Mercypsy.9602:

Paradoxically, I suspect the low activity in this thread (given the importance of the issue) is a good indication of how badly this needs to change. People simply don’t care about conditions in PvE. Either they don’t think it will ever change, or they’ve settled into their power builds, bought their power gear and just don’t care anymore. Only chumps still run conditions in PvE I guess.

People already discussed this a year ago.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/tequatl/Please-stop-neglecting-conditions-in-PvE/first

It’s an obvious issue. Plenty of suggestions have been made. Nothing has happened. Discussion isn’t worth the effort.

Go look at the suggestions folder archive, you’ll see just how wrong you are.

fast response on conditions problem? pffff they will jump on anything to divert attention from the Gemgate scandal ;-)

FrostSpectre.4198:

Dunno, but ANet has been experimenting with Mob variety on Mordrem, Giant Beetles and Legendary Sand Giant.

Before that they added Karka, most interesting ones being Veteran Karka.

These mobs atleast offer good targets for use of Conditions, since you cannot kill these mobs that fast as others.

Yes very interesting when they enter their thousand year long evade frames

Gaile Gray.6029:

~

Super-fast response. Good job, ANet!

I can guarantee you that they have tried some solutions and tossed them out because they didn’t work(within that first year after release), which is one reason why it’s taking so long to solve this issue, and that is all I’m going to say on it.

Gaile Gray.6029:

dace — I wouldn’t want you to think that this has been a static thing, that there’s been no movement on this. There’s been assessment, analysis, and discussion. The devs have considered changes and some they’ve outright rejected where others are still in the running and need assessing in relation to the bigger picture that I mentioned earlier. If there aren’t details to provide overtly — and right now there are not — there is activity happening covertly. So I would say that progress has been made.

CDI on this? I don’t know what Chris Whiteside’s schedule is for CDI’s, and I know his bandwidth is stretched thin. (He has a boatload of stuff on his plate, that for sure!) However, I’ll ping him about that and he can consider if it would fall into the CDI format, and if so, when.

Thanks for the suggestion.

It sounds like something that could do nicely with a CDI – seems like lots of good suggestions could come from the community. But indeed, he’s already been doing so much lately – its awesome to see the CDI start up again, and i’m already really glad with whats been done so far.

I’d also just like to add my support to this notion, since the endless berserker meta in PvE is tiring me out. It would be a real relief to be able to rely on condi’s for damage too in PvE – it would open up so many fun builds for meta use.

In PvP/WvW, I think the current system is relatively fine. In PvE, of course, by limiting the amount of damage some builds cause and not other, the problem is the that core damage system is fundamentally flawed. They simply can’t fix the condition system without breaking other elements of the game. Every class can apply conditions, which ultimately undermines each other in any large group, a small group if it’s a group of condition speced players. Any more than 2 or 3 conditimancers and you’re already undermining each other. A great first step would be to remove the global condition stacks and give each player their own condition stacks. That way each DD user still causes damage the same as they do now and still gets their little bit of conditions, but condition users can then actually be more effective. Remember, there is NO CAP on direct damage. 100 zerkers will cause VASTLY more damage than 100 condi users, this is largely due to the cap. More importantly, with individual stacks, condition user can then actually group with each other and not be at a terrible disadvantage when compared to DD users. Of course this it not as simple as it sounds. Maintaining condition stacks for each user will certainly require more bandwidth and potentially more server resources. Mobs will have to be upscaled a bit too and there would surely be class balancing required to ensure their new found power does not make condi users OP. Of course, since every profession has the option to be everything this greatly complicates things. You can have condition warriors and power necros, which are really kind of wrong in my opinion and kind of go against their nature. Either way this greatly complicates condition balancing

In short, one on one, I’ll take on any creature a zerker will take on, obviously, I’ll be somewhat slower due to the nature of conditions, I’m also not as delicate as a pure zerker build, this is the tradeoff, but given enough room to kite I can take down champions solo. In a group however, pure condition users should NOT NERF EACH OTHER, DD builds are not limited like this.

I think part of the issue is the relationship between condition damage and might. Causes twenty five times the server calculations per character just to calculate their damage. Kinda seems idiotic now that I think about it…condition damage should be static after the condition is applied, rather than retroactively scaling with might.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I talked to a couple of the devs just now, and they told me this is a subject they’re still reviewing and considering how best to address. It’s part of a larger discussion, as you can imagine, and changes would necessarily involve a few elements, not just condition caps alone.

While there aren’t details on changes or a timeframe in which they would be done, you can be sure that this is being reviewed by the devs and considered as part of the big picture and potential adjustments in the future.

What if we went simple with conditions?

Make every condition duration-based.
Bleeding now deals more damage with each passing second it is maintained (probably up to a cap), starting from a tiny amount. This keeps its feel alive while also providing a greater reward for cleansing the bleeding (counterplay) as well as for maintaining cover conditions. Alternatively, you could go an even simpler (but similar) route and have Bleeding deal more damage to foes with lower health.
Normalized damage on Confusion and Torment to a balanced middle ground.

Now that every condition only has one stack, give everyone their own stack of it.
The primary problem with the condition cap, as far as I remember hearing from a dev reply, was that the game could only support so many conditions on a target. With the removal of high-stack conditions entirely, this cap would be much harder to reach and it becomes much more possible to give everyone individual condition effectiveness.

Could i get some clarification on what, exactly the problem is with conditions, currently?

I understand how Fire condition damage most definitely needs to change since it can’t stack and ruins a great deal of dps for Elementalists.

I’m failing to see how this warrants a CDI? I have yet to play through any content that could not be completed so I am having a hard time trying to figure out where conditions are causing problems with game play.

Thanks in advance for any explanations.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I talked to a couple of the devs just now, and they told me this is a subject they’re still reviewing and considering how best to address. It’s part of a larger discussion, as you can imagine, and changes would necessarily involve a few elements, not just condition caps alone.

While there aren’t details on changes or a timeframe in which they would be done, you can be sure that this is being reviewed by the devs and considered as part of the big picture and potential adjustments in the future.

What if we went simple with conditions?

Make every condition duration-based.
Bleeding now deals more damage with each passing second it is maintained (probably up to a cap), starting from a tiny amount. This keeps its feel alive while also providing a greater reward for cleansing the bleeding (counterplay) as well as for maintaining cover conditions. Alternatively, you could go an even simpler (but similar) route and have Bleeding deal more damage to foes with lower health.
Normalized damage on Confusion and Torment to a balanced middle ground.

Now that every condition only has one stack, give everyone their own stack of it.
The primary problem with the condition cap, as far as I remember hearing from a dev reply, was that the game could only support so many conditions on a target. With the removal of high-stack conditions entirely, this cap would be much harder to reach and it becomes much more possible to give everyone individual condition effectiveness.

I don’t think anyone has proposed a concrete set of design goals (that we can agree on) for a new condition system yet. So, until that happens, it’s hard to say if any proposals we’ve made meet these undetermined metrics. Perhaps we can start?

Design goals for condition revamp
1)Computational workload for calculating and tracking individual condition damage and duration must be significantly less than the current system for the total number of players (1-150?) attacking a single enemy.
2)Total condition damage output from each player attacking a single mob should not interfere with another player’s damage in a manner that reduces the total condition damage of either player.
3)Condition damage expected maximum damage output on a per player basis should be competitive with direct damage for (unspecified) percent of enemy encounters. May involve retooling enemy defensive stats.

And that’s all I could come up with. I suggest everyone else chime in and help dream up an ideal set of goals for a condition redesign. This probably won’t go anywhere further than this thread but it’s a good way of understanding what we think our goals are and what they should actually be for conditions. A question that popped up in my head is, can I think of a set of design goals that wouldn’t require seriously retooling PVP or requiring a PVP split? I’m not sure I can. But if people would like to revise and/or add to what I’ve started, feel free. I think that once we have a list of design goals, we can start looking at our biases and potential flaws in our suggestions.

the problem was addressed by the community almost immediately after launch……no excuse for ignoring it so long…..and i have no expectation/faith it will ever be addressed by Anet beyond PR forum posts (much like precursor hunts/crafting).

“we’re looking into it and discussing many possibilities…..but you must understand it effects many facets of the game”.

i could say that about all the systems they’ve changed this past year that no one asked for.

Not sure it’s been posted. This is the most relevant comment I have ever seen on this.

Colin: Currently, no. Interesting statistic for you – every condition in the game costs server bandwidth. We have to track how often the condition is running, what the duration of that condition is, and what the stack is at. So the more stacks we allow, the more expensive it gets because we’re tracking every additional stack on there. So, we could say that you could have infinite stacks. Number one, that becomes really imbalanced. But number two, it’s really expensive for us on a performance basis. That’s one of those weird, kind of backend server issues that can help make game design decisions regardless of what you want to do with it.

Oh, gosh. It was right in the OP… haha

Fernling.1729:

Not sure it’s been posted. This is the most relevant comment I have ever seen on this.

Colin: Currently, no. Interesting statistic for you – every condition in the game costs server bandwidth. We have to track how often the condition is running, what the duration of that condition is, and what the stack is at. So the more stacks we allow, the more expensive it gets because we’re tracking every additional stack on there. So, we could say that you could have infinite stacks. Number one, that becomes really imbalanced. But number two, it’s really expensive for us on a performance basis. That’s one of those weird, kind of backend server issues that can help make game design decisions regardless of what you want to do with it.

which is why you would, as game designers, push out more PvE group content that rewards using a condi spec vs. using a zerk spec.

yes, it will upset the current speed runner min/maxers…..but oit would make for a healthier game.

Scryeless.1924:

Could i get some clarification on what, exactly the problem is with conditions, currently?

I understand how Fire condition damage most definitely needs to change since it can’t stack and ruins a great deal of dps for Elementalists.

I’m failing to see how this warrants a CDI? I have yet to play through any content that could not be completed so I am having a hard time trying to figure out where conditions are causing problems with game play.

Thanks in advance for any explanations.

The issue, implied in the design goals I drew up earlier, is that condition damage output is suboptimal in a group setting compared to direct damage. Some conditions reach this suboptimal state much sooner than others. Multiple players applying conditions often reduce the total damage output of the conditions being applied or simply cannot reach a damage output anywhere near direct damage during a typical enemy encounter. There are also problems unique to certain conditions. I realized I had to research some specifics here so bear with me. Burning, as you mentioned, only stacks in duration. Only 1 player is dealing burning damage at any time and can only be extended in duration by a total of 9 sources before those individual timers expire. Every application of burning thereafter is ignored completely. With bleeding, there can be 25 total unique sources of bleeding damage. And bleed stacks can be overwritten with new incoming bleeds which means higher damage/duration bleeds are quickly lost. These are only a few examples but just one of the effects of these problems is that we have the zerker meta in dungeons and in open world, targets that get hit by conditions from 100 players may only actually see damage from a maximum of 25 of them at any given point during the battle.

Fernling.1729:

Not sure it’s been posted. This is the most relevant comment I have ever seen on this.

Colin: Currently, no. Interesting statistic for you – every condition in the game costs server bandwidth. We have to track how often the condition is running, what the duration of that condition is, and what the stack is at. So the more stacks we allow, the more expensive it gets because we’re tracking every additional stack on there. So, we could say that you could have infinite stacks. Number one, that becomes really imbalanced. But number two, it’s really expensive for us on a performance basis. That’s one of those weird, kind of backend server issues that can help make game design decisions regardless of what you want to do with it.

Oh, gosh. It was right in the OP… haha

This is the part of the discussion that is hard to lock down when I saw players offering solutions. I saw player suggestions that looked like they might, maybe, possibly, satisfy that requirement of lower computational cost but it’s hard to say if it would. And of those suggestions, I’m not entirely sure they met any of the other design goals some of the other players would be looking for to make condition damage competitive in a typical PVE encounter, not even considering what it would do to PVP. That’s why having a set of goals is what they usually try to do with CDIs. It helps to have a target to shoot for so that the discussion can be focused and people know what parts they are allowed to toy with.

nightwulf.1986:

Scryeless.1924:

Could i get some clarification on what, exactly the problem is with conditions, currently?

I understand how Fire condition damage most definitely needs to change since it can’t stack and ruins a great deal of dps for Elementalists.

I’m failing to see how this warrants a CDI? I have yet to play through any content that could not be completed so I am having a hard time trying to figure out where conditions are causing problems with game play.

Thanks in advance for any explanations.

The issue, implied in the design goals I drew up earlier, is that condition damage output is suboptimal in a group setting compared to direct damage. Some conditions reach this suboptimal state much sooner than others. Multiple players applying conditions often reduce the total damage output of the conditions being applied or simply cannot reach a damage output anywhere near direct damage during a typical enemy encounter. There are also problems unique to certain conditions. I realized I had to research some specifics here so bear with me. Burning, as you mentioned, only stacks in duration. Only 1 player is dealing burning damage at any time and can only be extended in duration by a total of 9 sources before those individual timers expire. Every application of burning thereafter is ignored completely. With bleeding, there can be 25 total unique sources of bleeding damage. And bleed stacks can be overwritten with new incoming bleeds which means higher damage/duration bleeds are quickly lost. These are only a few examples but just one of the effects of these problems is that we have the zerker meta in dungeons and in open world, targets that get hit by conditions from 100 players may only actually see damage from a maximum of 25 of them at any given point during the battle.

Thanks so much for the explanation. I can definitely see how this is an issue for some. I can also now see how Anet would take some time to plan out things over a long periods because it would come down to equipment capabilities.

Perhaps Conditions need to be reworked in a way in which damage isn’t the function of conditions at all. Maybe instead Conditions need to stack to allow other sources of damage to do greater damage or to apply additional effects.

So the only conditions that deal damage are Burning, Poison, Bleeding, Torment, and Confusion. Burning could stay at 1 stack but stack in duration only as it currently does but instead of dealing damage it could cause damage when you use a healing skill and cause damage to anyone healed by your healing affects. Maybe bleeds could stack to 25 but instead of dealing damage they reduce the targets overall health pool by so many % per stack. Maybe Torment reduces attack speed by so many % per stack. Confusion could cause you to have a random chance to apply damage to surrounding allies instead.

Working your way into condition trait line or using the condition stat from gear could increase the effectiveness of the conditions you are applying. Maybe stacking Condi stat could give you a chance to push above certain caps on the % of effectiveness.

These are just some fun ideas and i think reworking conditions into a non-damage source could be a great deal of fun and really make group composition something that needs to be planned out to even greater extents.

Fernling.1729:

Not sure it’s been posted. This is the most relevant comment I have ever seen on this.

Colin: Currently, no. Interesting statistic for you – every condition in the game costs server bandwidth. We have to track how often the condition is running, what the duration of that condition is, and what the stack is at. So the more stacks we allow, the more expensive it gets because we’re tracking every additional stack on there. So, we could say that you could have infinite stacks. Number one, that becomes really imbalanced. But number two, it’s really expensive for us on a performance basis. That’s one of those weird, kind of backend server issues that can help make game design decisions regardless of what you want to do with it.

Oh, gosh. It was right in the OP… haha

That’s no excuse, infinite stacks would no more imbalanced than DD is now, which stacks indefinitely with as much as the group of players can deal out…no limits…AND it’s augmented by critical damage. The problem with infinite stacks is that it would anger much of the current zerker community which is basically the bread and butter of the player community. I don’t see why some of the condition computational load can’t be off loaded to the client machine.

The one thing I might give them is that computing individual stacks might be slightly more CPU intensive, but it should not be more network bandwidth intensive. It’s still the same amount of data per client per tick. It already returns how much my conditions tick for in the current stack. It’s not like it’s returning every number for every client. The data returned to me does not change.

Of course, the bigger issue is if conditions users cause comparable damage to DD users then everything becomes easier for everyone and this also is not an ideal situation. ANet needs to revisit and redesign the entire damage system to ensure some semblance of balance, then they have to rebalance each and every mob, event, dungeon, etc. and change how things scale. Personally, I think server limitations is an excuse they’re pushing to try and placate the mobs, but is that really a valid excuse for a broken, imbalanced system that has little done to improve it since go-live? Hardware limitations are something everyone can understand, but few really understand.

Most servers typically have multiple cores, each core typically capable of billions of calculations per second, and we’re to believe calculating condition stacks per user is too much? According to ANet, the max number of concurrent users was ~460k, I’d wager it’s typically much lower than this at any given time. Even so, with billions, perhaps trillions (Newer CPUs can do trillions per second) of calculations per second at disposal, calculating individual stacks should be a pittance. Since it’s already spawning a condition counter/calculation per user all they would need to do is add the second number to the current user instance to keep a total for the local stack. None of the other math has to change. In fact it becomes a bit easier since the local stack just gets applied and they don’t have to figure out which conditions from which players get added and dropped from the current stack. Of course, they have to keep counters for every condition applied by every player, rather than just 25 per condition per mob. Even then, most players, other than condi spec, can’t apply more than a few concurrent conditions and shouldn’t be more than a few million calculations for all users…assuming every player in the game is applying conditions at the same time.

As a starting point, I’d modify my original suggestion of personal stacks for everyone to this:
My suggestion is to only only change the way the stacks work, giving players personal condition stacks, for elites, champions, bosses and world bosses (Essentially mobs where a full condition stack happens and players undermine each other), it would make a huge difference for primary condi users since it mainly the elites and stronger where condi users are undermined the most. Since these mobs are far fewer, this approach would require far less overall redesign/rebalance AND it would be far less CPU expensive than everyone individual stacks globally.

The other problem with condi users is making AOE work on world bosses. If they can bleed, then an AOE that causes bleed should work on them, not cover them with a mark, but that’s another issue.

… dude what’s with the wall of text? This is a two+ year old problem where Gaile just wrote something and left 10 days ago … it’s realistically abandoned don’t you get it?

Besides, it took dev over a year to fix the mesmer warden thingy, so this?? will you even be here by 2023?

Korossive.7085:

… dude what’s with the wall of text? This is a two+ year old problem where Gaile just wrote something and left 10 days ago … it’s realistically abandoned don’t you get it?

Besides, it took dev over a year to fix the mesmer warden thingy, so this?? will you even be here by 2023?

I know, I was involved in some of the original forum discussions regarding condition damage as well…makes me feel better though. Unless it’s something that’s making players richer, that they fix IMMEDIATELY, ANet typically takes forever to fix anything. Took them what, 6…8…10 months to fix champion rewards after Lost Shore? They initially denied anything changed with loot, when all of a sudden world events and dungeons started returning pretty much all blues and greens. Orr was returning many times more porous bones than usual. Their anti-farming and DR crew was in overdrive. Again, many months when loot was an extremely bleak situation, with massive threads on the forum about it that would go hundreds of posts before seeing an ANet comment, if they commented at all. Sometimes they would just close the thread with typically vague reasons or merge it in to another to complicate things. It took them forever to do anything about it, but for every thread they closed we opened another. During these days, few people did champions, fewer did world events and things on map chat were generally very toxic…players were generally unhappy. Ultimately, I ended up quitting the game for nearly 7 months, but still participated on the froums. They eventually made loot better, though certainly not as good as those first few months before November 2012, when the loot nerfs first hit.

When it comes to condition damage situation, if we don’t discuss it and keep raising it as an issue, then they have no reason to do anything about it. If no one was complaining, do you think they would have done anything with loot?