Guild Wars 2

What does the term “balanced” mean, when it comes to classes? In most MMOGs, IMO, a “balanced” class means different things when it comes to PvE and PvP.

In PVE, balance generally means that a perfectly played, maximally efficient class will be the functional equivalent of any other class when it comes to the acquiring content that is part of the linear character progression. IOW, when reduced to a mathematical formula, every class (when perfectly played) produces the same value when it comes to gaining levels, farming resources or gold, or contributing to group or raid content.

In PvP, balance means that a perfectly played class will result in a draw with any other perfectly played class (when measured statistically over time).

The concept of “balance”, in any non-arbitrary, objective sense, must refer to a statistical analysis in regards to acquiring specific, mathematically-reducible products. IOW, if any class is not equivalent to any other class in terms being reduced to a numerical variable towards some kind of linear product, then the class is “not balanced”.

My question is: should classes in GW2 be “balanced” at all? Or is this simply a notion rooted in the very kind of MMO structure that GW2 is designed to escape? Doesn’t striving for universal equivalence of professions limit the possible variety, and doesn’t it impose the mentality that all your character is, essentially, is a numerical value in regards to how much it can contribute in a give PvE or PvP situation?

When characters are essentially reducible to how much tanking, dps or healing they provide, then it seems they can be balanced; I’m not sure how one would go about “balancing” the classes in GW2. When you consider all of the variables – all of the variant dodge roll effects, the ability to generate combo fields, character foot speed in aiding in the evasion of MOB attacks and effects, quick revive skills, etc. – unless you just line up one class mano a mano against each other with players dedicated to perfecting those particular classes in PvP, how can anyone claim to have “balanced” anything?

It seems to me that ANET should just abandon the whole notion of “balancing” classes, free up the future for all kinds of new class variations, and just let the general population figure out what they prefer playing. Then, if very few people are playing a certain class, they might take a look at changing something – but, then again, why not have classes that few people enjoy? I think trying to accomplish an even spread of class choices is also a mistake – an attempt to homogenize class appeal. Even if a class is difficult to play, so what? Lots of people enjoy playing difficult-to-play classes.

It seems to me that the idea of a set of “balanced” classes is really only viable when the productivity of a character in a given PvE or PvP setting is essentially reducible to numbers in a formula. Given the structure of combat in GW2, I think that “class balance” should be an idea throw into the same garbage bin as the holy trinity.

ANet – please ignore anyone who says ignore balance.

Oh, and no one balances 1 on 1 unless it’s a game designed around 1 on 1.

You cant balance. Atleast in my opinion. its proven by any other game on the market, their will always be a build better then others, A “perfect” build if you will.

Classes are no diffrent. Some classes will simply be better. Fighting games are evident of this. But tiers are not the be all end all, Simply play better and master the tools given to you, and you can beat people.

“Well he is everything I have but better!”

Yeah you can say then when skill is perfectly equal, but there is no proof of skill. Since that is something that is an opinion in a sense, Warriors op? Play better noob. They have stronger tools, but that does not mean skill is always equal, assuming it is will have you lose from the start cause you overestimate your enemy.

You cant balance. Atleast in my opinion. its proven by any other game on the market, their will always be a build better then others, A “perfect” build if you will.

This is my view too. However, the leash on the neck of developers is that they must at least attempt to “balance” current and any new classes. I’d like to see what they could come up with by setting that concern largely aside and just try to think up stuff people would like to be able to do.

First, why do all classes center on combat? How about a class that has skills that aren’t centered on combat? How about a class that centers on getting otherwise unattainable lore out of NPCs or can read books others cannot? Or a class that centers around being able to get variant designs out of crafting? Or a class that is better suited to exploration – can jump farther, higher, climb better, run faster, see more things on the map? How about a class that can acquire variant emotes?

I’m just saying – many of us playing this game are world-experiencers, not “game players” so to speak, so attempting to define our characters in terms of a balanced, mathematical combat formula is, IMO, an artifact from 10 years of WoW-clonism that can be dispensed with.

“You can’t achieve perfect balance” isn’t a reason to stop trying to balance things.

Just like “You can’t stop all crime” isn’t a reason to shut down all police stations worldwide and embrace anarchy.

Jestunhi.7429:

“You can’t achieve perfect balance” isn’t a reason to stop trying to balance things.

Just like “You can’t stop all crime” isn’t a reason to shut down all police stations worldwide and embrace anarchy.

I dont think OP or anyone means it that extreme, I think its more along the lines of, “Dont get stressed over something that will never be obtained”

Dont chase that “Balance” dream. Still try, but dont do it just because people are crying nonstop. Sometimes its best to accept that a class is bad and play it cause you enjoy it. if you enjoy winning then simply play the class that wins.

The only way to be truly balanced is to offer no customization options whatsoever.

Outside of that it’s largely subjective and usually not related to relative stength, but rather relative popularity and ease of use.

In this, the OP has the right idea of not getting on this silly hamster wheel of making cyclic balance changes just to keep a different group of users happy every couple of months. However, I cannot emphasize enough that while there are ANY options at all, a non-arbitrary, objective balance does not and cannot ever exist.

What I suspect we’ll see then as far as balance, is the occasional nerf to builds that stagnate the sPvP scene—that is, builds, skills, traits, or weapons that become part of every team with no obvious or effective counter besides itself—and quality-of-life changes to professions with mechanics that are unpopular or difficult to play, regardless of actual effectiveness.

Yes, I don’t mean that there shouldn’t be any effort to make a class viable – IOW, it can get to level 80 and participate well in PvP – but the idea that the classes can be “balanced” in GW2 is, IMO, a non-starter. There are just too many variables involved that have no objective metric. IMO, developers should focus more on making entertaining, interesting classes and options and not try to homogenize everything to fit a set of numbers.

It seems that the ‘balancing’ of classes in GW2 PVE comes out of the dev’s desire to escape the MMO Holy Trinity; whether or not the ability to solo the entire game is a result of making each class ‘self-sufficient’ or one of the reasons it was implemented, I don’t know (but am curious.)

I can understand a desire to escape the tank/healer/damage dealer, but GW2 feels a little divided between a “let’s all play together!” philosophy driven by XP/resource sharing, etc., and a “ kitten off, I don’t need your stinking synergy!” philosophy that never REQUIRES you to group up, for the most part. Yes, classes can still act as supprt/force multipliers for each other, but it’s not as central to the game as it was in GW.

I can appreciate the desire to leave things up to the players, but I miss teamplay in PVE; there’s no substantial pressure exerted by the structure of the game itself for teamplay (I don’t just mean ganging up, but interlocking actions like in a role-based approach,) it doesn’t happen very often. Whether or not additional content makes it more essential remains to be seen.

balance to make every class comparable in overall ability, yes. balance to have everyone to everything equally good, please no.

Take a quick look.
Warriors are overpowered.
Thieves are overpowered.
Mesmers are overpowered.
Necromancers are overpowered.
Guardians are overpowered.
Rangers are ovwerpowered.
Engineers are overpowered.
Elementalists are …ok they could use a few small tweeks.

So if everyone is overpowered then I guess things are rather well balanced then arn’t they.

Balance means there is not one obvious choice when you play the game. If Thieves are dominating a PvP zone, then your only choice if you want to win is play a Thief, then they need to balance.

This is a moving target, they will change one thing and we will find a different flavor of the month. For a while in GW1 if you didn’t play a bunny thumper you didn’t win, then you went to ranger spike, if you wanted to win you went with a ranger spike team. This moved on and on for years, they nerf we find another flavor. It makes the game more interesting as you must keep chaning if you want to remain relevant.

the best argument against balancing i’ve seen..

it takes 7 years.

http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/developer_updates/

Echo.7634

Take a quick look.
Warriors are overpowered.
Thieves are overpowered.
Mesmers are overpowered.
Necromancers are overpowered.
Guardians are overpowered.
Rangers are ovwerpowered.
Engineers are overpowered.
Elementalists are …ok they could use a few small tweeks.

So if everyone is overpowered then I guess things are rather well balanced then arn’t they.

October 14, 2012 18:54

not realy

With last PatchMesmer got a huge nerf hit (wich even if it may be good balancing on PVP, it totaly reduced their survaivability on PvE)

and Elementalist dont survive on a one vs one against any class ( i love to be knocked down for 3 sec form a warrior from afar and being one shooted while down ) i still dont have a skill as elementalist that can oneshoot a warrior as they can do to me

and one you are downed.. well we all love the GREAT downed skill we have as elementalist not?

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

It seems to me that ANET should just abandon the whole notion of “balancing” classes, free up the future for all kinds of new class variations, and just let the general population figure out what they prefer playing. Then, if very few people are playing a certain class, they might take a look at changing something – but, then again, why not have classes that few people enjoy? I think trying to accomplish an even spread of class choices is also a mistake – an attempt to homogenize class appeal. Even if a class is difficult to play, so what? Lots of people enjoy playing difficult-to-play classes.

This is what they seem to be doing – letting the “meta-game” develop and see how people learn the mechanics and how they deal with them. They have said multiple times that this is how they tend to look at things.

Also, you mention how it’s good to “have classes that a few people enjoy.”
Everyone has their preference towards what kind of profession they’d enjoy. I prefer melee-oriented. Someone else prefers range-focused. But when a profession gets chosen more often than not because of a certain mechanic they have that gives them an advantage over others with little effort, then this is something that should be looked at.

Balancing needs to happen.

If it doesn’t, everyone would play two archetypes – the top ranged, and the top melee – and ignore preference. This is bad.

Want to know why Elementalists aren’t played as much? Because it’s harder to play one successfully. Want to know why there’s a ton of Warriors? Because they are easy to play right.

People prefer Warriors because of their ease-of-use and general strength.

Sure, there are definitely things that need to be looked at and watched as time goes on (as they have mentioned, they are watching and planning to alter some Elementalist skills). This doesn’t mean re-work. This means they are confident in their design, and that they maintain a checklist of what’s feasible for each profession to accomplish, and probably weigh them against other professions.

Sounds like the OP plays a guardian and scared of future nerfs heh.

This is a game where you can very easily make a character of any profession. It’s not like some other NCSoft games that take 1000+ hours of gameplay to max level.

So if there’s FotM class, it’s not such a big deal here as in other games.

They have plenty of data with 2 million accounts sold. There’s a constant stream of tournaments and regular spvp matches. They can look at dungeons completed (and dungeons failed) by profession also to see how things are going. Is the warrior always top of its group in PvE? Has there ever been a winning tournament team without a mesmer?

There are a lot of ways to define balance, and two relevant aspects of the game (spvp and pve/dungeons) on which to balance. The only people with access to the relevant data are ANet.

If it doesn’t, everyone would play two archetypes – the top ranged, and the top melee – and ignore preference. This is bad.

What does “top” mean here? Most DPS? Easiest to PVE? Most popular gear graphics? Most popular skills/traits? Most used archetype in sPvP? This is really my point – “balancing” doesn’t mean much in a game like GW2.

Sounds like the OP plays a guardian and scared of future nerfs heh.

I’ve spent by far the most time with my elementalist because he is difficult to play and has IMO some of the coolest combat abilities in the game. I don’t really care about class nerfing – it doesn’t make me any difference, really, because I’m not a numbers guy. I don’t play min-max style. What I’m more interested in is profession variety and keeping the game fun, instead of this constant drive to force all professions into mathematical equivalence.