Guild Wars 2

Six months is way too long to not see the needed class balancing appear.

If you look over the class changes since the game went live, its like basically nothing has been done at all. A few minor tweaks……thats it.

I dont care if its 2 guys working it or not. if thats all i produced in a six month period i would have been fired long ago.

I would like to see Engineers get some help.
But my main thing is the invisibility on thief’s, I would like to see what I am fighting once in a while. Really I think warriors and mez’s are ok, but then I don’t play Spvp, just WvW, so I can’t speak for that side of it.

kelman.9451:

I would like to see Engineers get some help.
But my main thing is the invisibility on thief’s, I would like to see what I am fighting once in a while. Really I think warriors and mez’s are ok, but then I don’t play Spvp, just WvW, so I can’t speak for that side of it.

Engineers need a lot of help imo. I never understood why elementalists get 4 attunements for free and can slot even more weapons as utilities/elite, but engineers need to slot their skills in utilities to get an F1-F4. Basically engineers lack 11 skills(15 if you want to count the trait that allows attunements to do stuff) compared to eles. Engineers need to either get a weapon swap or make their F1-F4 weapon kits, turrets, or elixirs. Once the base class design is at least balanced then we can get into how bad turrets are, how weak the weapon kits are, etc.

Thieves are a bad design(my main is a thief). Stealth is always something that is imbalanced. I thought maybe that short duration stealth would work, but with backstab doing way too much damage it becomes exactly what I was a afraid of. Thieves have their share of issues though! Initiative will always be a huge balancing obsticale and I was against it being added. Outside of the backstab build there is only 1 other “viable” build(condition). I do think thief burst damage needs nerfed, no one should be doing 10k in a single hit and certainly not from stealth. However, then thieves need some help in survivability and group utility.

Warriors damage is off the charts in some cases and needs brought in line. They do need help in SPvP though since they lack some utility and in PvE they certainly lack a “fun” factor.

I haven’t finished my mesmer yet(lvl 32) so I can’t comment on them but all the classes need some work, just because the class has a viable build or two doesn’t mean the other 75% of the skills/utilities/traits aren’t terrible. The class I think that probably is the most balanced right now is the guardian. Plenty of group utility, plenty of damage, good survivability, and decent traits. Again that doesn’t mean they don’t have issues(ranged) but just that currently they are the most well rounded.

Tom.6478:

Well if they do do a rebalance, I hope they tweek up the percieved weaker class, rather than tweeking down the percieved stronger class.

I’ve spent alot of time and energy on my 3 main toons. Don’t make me mad by weakening them.

I can live with the so called weaker classes being made better, but don’t dumb me down to them.

Heck, if you make the weaker better, I may make one of them my toon as well, and be happy about it.

Its less to do with strength and more to do with lacking interesting mechanics, terrible traits, boring weapon skills. Fix these first then worry about power levels.

Sauzo.6821:

I’ve grouped with warriors that did less dps than an afk player simply because they spent more time downed than actually fighting….and when got up, they were downed again faster than a fat kid on a seesaw….

As a warrior main I approve this message.

Ryujinshi.5618:

Sauzo.6821:

I’ve grouped with warriors that did less dps than an afk player simply because they spent more time downed than actually fighting….and when got up, they were downed again faster than a fat kid on a seesaw….

As a warrior main I approve this message.

Have you considered NOT going full beserk and maybe switching to ranged from now and then? jeez..

TooBz.3065:

Aegis.9724:

Well, anet said they’re not gonna play whack-a-mole…
Shame they said that AFTER nerfing ranger into oblivion when closed beta ended, and kicking him in the balls with the “shortbow animation fix”

So lets hope for some good general buffs on weaker classes.

And still people in PVP complain about the trap/condition ranger. Which is the one decent build left.

That’s going to be nerfed because it’s an " apex predator ". Watch the state of the game video regarding rangers. It will become very clear what the problem with class balance is. Hell it will become very clear what the problem with the entire game is.

I wouldn’t hold my breath for any class balancing coming on the 26 and if there is any class balancing Thieves will get a 50% damage increase on all their attack skills.

Every class has problems. As powerful as Warriors are, they aren’t without their issues. A lack of condition removal, damage mitigation, and mobility really messes up the class. But they don’t need much to fix them.

For example, Ride the Lightning and Swoop work the same way. If snared, they still move at full speed to get away and go their max distance. Rush on the otherhand doesn’t work this way. It has the same distance, slightly longer cooldown, slightly more damage, but if snared, you don’t move the full distance and you don’t move at the unreduced movement rate.

Now while people will argue that RTL is overpowered, Swoop most certainly isn’t. And all of these 3 skills should work the same way. I’d much rather see Warrior Rush improved to be as effective as the other 2 skills rather than swoop and rtl nerfed to be as useless as rush. And this doesn’t even go into the other issues the skill has.

Now these kind of inconsistencies should be removed. There’s nothing wrong with multiple classes having the same skill. But if they do, they should all work the same way. We see the same issue between Thief and Ranger skills that do similar things, but the Thief one is immensely better.

Some normalization across the classes could do wonders in improving overall class balance.

I understand there are balance issues, but i hear alot of globalization- minded cries.
The classes should be different. ALOT different. They are…kinda.

Making every movement skill the same is gonna dumb down the game.

It’s ok that warriors are gimped with CC more then other, they are more beastly to compensate. The lower classes and builds should be pumped up abit, and everything is gonna be just A-ok.

Blakey.5670:

I understand there are balance issues, but i hear alot of globalization- minded cries.
The classes should be different. ALOT different. They are…kinda.

Making every movement skill the same is gonna dumb down the game.

It’s ok that warriors are gimped with CC more then other, they are more beastly to compensate. The lower classes and builds should be pumped up abit, and everything is gonna be just A-ok.

Warrior is the weakest PVP class.

If anything they should be boosted the most.

Pfff they are certainly not. They are as solid as they come.

Blakey.5670:

Pfff they are certainly not. They are as solid as they come.

They really aren’t. They have a very low representation in WvW because their only value is damage, but to stand up long enough to do it, they lose a lot of it. The Warrior requires the least amount of work I’d argue because they have the skills in the right places, they just aren’t good enough.

And there isn’t going to be any dumbing down of the game if skills that are identical in description were actually identical in function as well.

As I said above, the fact that Rush (and Bull’s Charge) don’t work like RTL and Swoop is so strange it leaves many players thinking they’re bugged. We need to see them improved. Otherwise we’re left to presume RTL and Swoop are bugged and the main reason Ele’s are overpowered. Rangers will just have to be a casualty of war I suppose.

I find some of the mesmer traits to be ill-placed, severely limiting viable builds. I hope they do something about it soon.

is just not fair that some classes (professions) get the short stick and must go cry in a corner because someone does not love them too much…
pve i mean. (pvp/w3 i dont care, really)

Ansultares.1567:

Astralporing.1957:

Making everyone be equally miserable is definitely not fine.

Ah, the joys of socialism.

Scandinavian countries are socialist and consistently rank in the world’s top 10 most livable and most developed countries in the world with the happiest people. Stop watching Faux News.

Back on topic… I think it’s skills, not classes per se, that need the most balancing. Skills like 100b, kill shot, CnD-mug-BS, triple-shatter-BF-while-invulnerable that take 50%+ of full char HP in 1-2 button presses shouldn’t be in any PVP MMO worth a kitten

Cero.5132:

only 2 people on class balancing?
I guess you guys missed the threat, where anet gave a statement about it being a misunderstanding. They made that statement shortly after that rumor came up.

Oh, it wasn’t a Rumor. Jon 100% said it, clear as day.

And I did miss the thread where they “cleared up the misunderstanding.” But I’m willing to bet it was just to put the fire out and to make the angry mob put their pitchforks and torches away. It’d be bad publicity if people knew the lack of effort going towards balancing.

Judging by past class balance patches (lol because there are none), I’m willing to bet Jon’s original statement was the truth.

mjharrison.3209:

Ansultares.1567:

Astralporing.1957:

Making everyone be equally miserable is definitely not fine.

Ah, the joys of socialism.

Scandinavian countries are socialist and consistently rank in the world’s top 10 most livable and most developed countries in the world with the happiest people. Stop watching Faux News.

Nope, they are capitalist countries with strong social mechanics. That is not the same – in fact, there is a world of difference between those two.

Atherakhia.4086:

Blakey.5670:

Pfff they are certainly not. They are as solid as they come.

They really aren’t. They have a very low representation in WvW because their only value is damage

Warriors have a low representation in the WvW? I always see a lot of them somehow.

i fail to understand why the most viable builds get the nerf stick, but the non viable ones are left UP (since ppl don’t use them, why bother…)
am i missing something here ?

Cero.5132:

only 2 people on class balancing?
I guess you guys missed the threat, where anet gave a statement about it being a misunderstanding. They made that statement shortly after that rumor came up.

so..hmm, why haven’t the classes got their fix and balance done since launch? things are done incredible slowly, like almost nothing…or getting worse, did they say how many they actualy have? 1 not 2?

Rangers aren’t completely awful like people are making them out to be.

I can see them having trouble in Fractals past a certain level, but other then a few choice spots in a Dungeon they’re not bad.

They’re not bad in WvW either…..Though they do suffer from their “power” based builds with long bow being pretty awful 1v1, we make up for it with our bunker builds being almost unstoppable 1v1.

As for Group uses, I will admit that…Grouping up on my Ranger is kind of pointless… We simply don’t have the group utility of other classes. I mean I can do the water field basically, but in World vs World that’s a bit rough to use.

Dungeons it’s not that bad.

Kilgor.9201:

I’m not gonna spend anymore money on the gem store untill they make some proper class balancing.

If they “dumb down” the D/D ele build or otherwise break it, rather than buffing the codie/control builds that counter it, I will leave this game, period.

0/10/0/30/30 ele is the gold standard of how everyone else should be.

If they destroy this build rather than incorporating proper synergy-breakers like corrupt boon is for this build, and adding synergy like this to other builds, I will be forced to conclude ANet is too lazy to enter the AAA mmo arena, and simply leave.

I’ve been let down too many times, and will probably swap to books, because even console games are starting to get nerfed post-launch.

Meanwhile thieves have been in terrible shape — pidgeon-holed into mug+backstab which everyone hates (including many thieves who would prefer more useful weapon combinations to one ‘iwin button’)

Astralporing.1957:

mjharrison.3209:

Ansultares.1567:

Astralporing.1957:

Making everyone be equally miserable is definitely not fine.

Ah, the joys of socialism.

Scandinavian countries are socialist and consistently rank in the world’s top 10 most livable and most developed countries in the world with the happiest people. Stop watching Faux News.

Nope, they are capitalist countries with strong social mechanics. That is not the same – in fact, there is a world of difference between those two.

Atherakhia.4086:

Blakey.5670:

Pfff they are certainly not. They are as solid as they come.

They really aren’t. They have a very low representation in WvW because their only value is damage

Warriors have a low representation in the WvW? I always see a lot of them somehow.

Sorry I meant sPvP, not WvW

DKNS.2135:

Seriously, the hate towards classes like Rangers (my main), Engies and Necros (currently at lvl70) is getting out of hand. I seriously love the concept of the later 2 classes and want to fully gear them for dungeons and fractals, but the hate they get is terrible and even their usefulness is very questionable compared to the other ones. Please tell me we can expect something on feb 26th

Completely agree and would love to know the same. Tired of engineer healing being subpar. They not only need to work on dps, condi damage restoration but also they need some serious looks at the way healing is done in this game. Seriously. 1 ability and only 1 ability on the engineer side of things that’s actually properly affected by +healing stats on gear is just not right honestly.

There is one thing to note about the off hand dagger for eles.
RTL is actually 1500 range not 1200 range, you can test this with a nade-engineer friend.

I do believe that Anet should nerf D/D ele the weapon skills themselves, not the traits.
Traits should be revised in general in my opinion through all the classes.

LieutenantGoogle.7326:

There is one thing to note about the off hand dagger for eles.
RTL is actually 1500 range not 1200 range, you can test this with a nade-engineer friend.

I do believe that Anet should nerf D/D ele the weapon skills themselves, not the traits.
Traits should be revised in general in my opinion through all the classes.

Yes, because there are so many D/D eles WITHOUT water traits.

RTL btw is not an evasion — you can immob an ele when RTL starts and it turns into a self-stun, or just dps them through RTL with a ranged weapon.

They need to reduce ele’s dependence on healing. This means reducing source of personal regeneration (personal only, not group-wide) and adding evasive skills to ele weapon sets.

ele is being strangled on build potential by the power of its own water tree and the weakness of its weapon skills. For reference, nearly every weapon set mesmer has has a defense — either a kiting tool or two for ranged, or a block/evade for melee.

mjharrison.3209:

Scandinavian countries are socialist and consistently rank in the world’s top 10 most livable and most developed countries in the world with the happiest people. Stop watching Faux News.

It works in some (small and wealthy) countries; don’t act like it can be easily transposed anywhere its tried.

Besides, that happiness index garbage is a bunch of nonsense. Stop drinking the kool-aid, because you’re not really in the club.

Agree +1

Imo guardians need to be able to use a bow and have the same dps as a worriar.

omerk.2709:

We would like to see a group of people with the same gear output the same damage.

There will be differences as warriors outsurvive rangers by far, which is a natural difference, and the ranger far superior in ranged combat. The dps ourput should be the same for similar gear.
I belive that is all OP asks for.

Something about the last sentence just does not make sense. For example use 5 warriors versus 5 guardians, all using beserker armor and exotic greatswords. Currently the warrior has more dps while the guardian has more survivability. If you want the guardian group to put out the same dps as the warrior group then why roll a warrior when you can have the best of both worlds?

There are other things to each class besides dps. if the class is unbalanced it is those things that should be strengthened not the damage output.

if they gimp aoe..simply cos of w vw ..then im done…back to my xbox

there’s no rpg in this mmo. once you hit 80, thats game over. you play for gettin shiny armor, with no benefits. onoly 5 skills per weapon, so no much of a “build wars” like gw1.
oh, and to kill an enemy takes ages and almost no loot,; for champions, you need a party. see ya!

Astralporing.1957:

mjharrison.3209:

Ansultares.1567:

Astralporing.1957:

Making everyone be equally miserable is definitely not fine.

Ah, the joys of socialism.

Scandinavian countries are socialist and consistently rank in the world’s top 10 most livable and most developed countries in the world with the happiest people. Stop watching Faux News.

Nope, they are capitalist countries with strong social mechanics. That is not the same – in fact, there is a world of difference between those two.

Um, I lived in denmark… it’s a socialist democracy. Compared to the US, all of scandanavia is considerably further left than even the leftist elements of the democrats. eg: high taxes, fully government paid healthcare, education and social welfare from birth to death. They are as socialist as socialist gets.

0/10/0/30/30 ele is the gold standard of how everyone else should be.

This exactly. The design of D/D Ele is the standout of all the specs/classes i’ve played yet. It would be a travesty to kill it. They simply need to bring up the level of traits across the board and allow for more build depth through trait/skill interactions.

mjharrison.3209:

mjharrison.3209:

Scandinavian countries are socialist and consistently rank in the world’s top 10 most livable and most developed countries in the world with the happiest people. Stop watching Faux News.

Astralporing.1957:

Nope, they are capitalist countries with strong social mechanics. That is not the same – in fact, there is a world of difference between those two.

Um, I lived in denmark… it’s a socialist democracy. Compared to the US, all of scandanavia is considerably further left than even the leftist elements of the democrats. eg: high taxes, fully government paid healthcare, education and social welfare from birth to death. They are as socialist as socialist gets.

They are as socialist as is possible with a country based on capitalist-type business.
Truly socialist country, for example, would have NO taxes. After all, if there is no private income, but only state-issued one, there is no need for them – all the “tax” money is deduced beforehand. Truly socialist country would have no private business – everyone would be a government (“state”) employee.
In theory it is a good idea. In practice if you do not work for your own gain, but for “good of all”, you usually neither work as hard as you could, nor really care. In the end, all the socialist countries are good for is making everyone equally miserable.

It is very good for their citizens, that scandinavian countries are not truly socialist.

0/10/0/30/30 ele is the gold standard of how everyone else should be.

I wouldn’t go that far, but certainly there is lot of things in that build that should be present everywhere – good skill/trait/action synergy, the exponential increase in effectiveness after learning the build. Self-heal should likely be toned down and replaced with other forms of damage mitigation (defensive/evasive weapons skills, i.e.). It should also be paired with severe overhaul (buffing, in general) of all other elementalist weapons and builds. Definitely devs should not start ele balance with a nerf. Unfortunately, seems that’s exactly what they are planning to do.

knyy.6427:

a ranger with a bow should NOT do the same damage as a warrior in melee, as simple.

melee damage >> range damage

i dont know how much damage a ranger does with his melee attacks? that can be buffed maybe.

Only if you factor in “uptime”. If staying in melee had shorter uptime then it would be fine. Because the total damage done over a period of time should be nearly the same.

Theftwind.8976:

There are other things to each class besides dps. if the class is unbalanced it is those things that should be strengthened not the damage output.

Good point. But it seems that in PvE only DPS is what matters.

Blizzard tried to bring back utility and CC in Cataclysm. In the end they failed because after a while players where still zerging down mobs with raw DPS.

The idea of utility is nice. But in PvE it rarely works. In PvE maximizing DPS is always the best way to quick success. Unless some developer studio finds a better way ;-)

omerk.2709:

kokiman, it’s basicly correct, with one excpetion.
Suppose now a group of 5 full berserk exotic gear warriors takes down a boss in 60 seconds, and a group of 5 berserk reangers take the same boss down in 3 minutes, we wouldn’t want the 5 warrior nerfed to 3 minutes. We would like to see a group of people with the same gear output the same damage.

There will be differences as warriors outsurvive rangers by far, which is a natural difference, and the ranger far superior in ranged combat. The dps ourput should be the same for similar gear.
I belive that is all OP asks for.

Talk for yourself. I know my ranger can outsurvive warriors lol

Revolution.6301:

Agree +1

Imo guardians need to be able to use a bow and have the same dps as a worriar.

No. (playing guardian on main) I have learned a lot while playing a guardian and we do NOT lack DPS. We do NOT need better ranged skills (don’t need but it would be nice) and we certainly do NOT lose to warriors simply because they deal more damage. Guardian merely requires more thought in gameplay and builds. Yes, it sucks on zerg fights when we can’t do anything else but support or pick up drifters from other zergs but in the end we have pretty nice skills to support the WHOLE zerg.

Over 1000h on guardian, the class is only good as support/utility. It lacks dps terribly, it lacks any range damage for wvw, and i`ve seen warriors insta-gib guards if guard goes anything damage-wise in his gear (not a bunker). Bunker guards can outsurvive a lot of stuff but cannot kill anything, so he just survives until the point when an enemy gets a backup. Guard cannot run from a fight like thief/mesm, hell, even engie do. Basically guard is a buff-bot in pve/wvw.

My thotz on class balance (I haz level 80 everything, and multiples of most)

Warrior – I have a bunker, a zerker, and a MF, and they all work just fine. This class needs no changes but bug fixes.

Thief – I have a bunker/condition and a burster. They are nowhere near as durable as even the zerker warrior, but a burster thief kills one target faster than a zerker warrior. Soon as you get to multiple targets tho, things get way too interesting. Still, I wouldn’t make any changes EXCEPT to frakkin’ fix culling so I don’t feel guilty about using stealth.

Mezzie – I have a phantasmal, and am building a reflect. I’ve also played along side a bunch of other builds. This is one of the most interesting classes ANet came up with, and I have a lot of fun theorycrafting all the cool things you can do. Bug fixes only for this class.

Guardian – I went altruistic healing. My guardian isn’t the most useful solo toon, but wow does it act as a damage multiplier. I’ve also run alongside DPS guardians, so I’ve gotten to see just how well that works. The only tweak they really need is making sure all the gear combos for best-in-slot get done asap.

Necros – I wanted to have a minion toon, but since minions are all kittened up, she’s bunker/combos. She can facetank stuff that even my bunker warrior can’t, and since she uses marks and wells, she’s pretty much a non-stop source of combo fields for her teammates. That said, necros suffer badly from the condition cap and the broken AI on minions. They’re also useless in sPvP and WvW since 90% of players eventually figure out that condition removal is an easy to add feature to most classes.

Ranger – I have a beastmaster, a faberge cannon, and am building a condition ranger (cuz I’m weird). The beastmaster is hysterical to play. I sit down and send my pet off to kill stuff. In WvW, I send it after siege engines. It is extreme DPS pet. My other done range, the faberge cannon, wracks up medals better than any other toon I have. I have no idea why people complain about ranger DPS. I’m pretty sure in a duel versus a zerker warrior, the warrior would be dead long before it got to me.

Elementalist – I change up my elly based on mood. Sometimes she’s staff, sometimes daggers. Sometimes she runs a really cool signet/aura build that keeps her constantly under boons. Sometimes she runs a pretty common arcane attunement spam build. There are also AoE damage builds, healer builds, etc that ellies can run very well. Good class.

Engineer – I have a completed engineer that now has no build. She was turrets/grenades. The turrets were more a little addition DPS and healing while she did the real work. Then grenades got nerfed…twice….cuz engineers were ever so much more powerful than wet kittens. Now she had no build because there is absolutely nothing engineers do well anymore. Any build I can come up with would work better on another class.

Nurse.1085:

Cero.5132:

only 2 people on class balancing?
I guess you guys missed the threat, where anet gave a statement about it being a misunderstanding. They made that statement shortly after that rumor came up.

Oh, it wasn’t a Rumor. Jon 100% said it, clear as day.

And I did miss the thread where they “cleared up the misunderstanding.” But I’m willing to bet it was just to put the fire out and to make the angry mob put their pitchforks and torches away. It’d be bad publicity if people knew the lack of effort going towards balancing.

Judging by past class balance patches (lol because there are none), I’m willing to bet Jon’s original statement was the truth.

In many cases it’s very obvious that this is happening even with him admitting to it and yeah I can see them doing the whole PR thing just like they did to sweep under the rug multiple things said in these forums.

I’m not holding my breath for this patch but just watching to I can see what happens. My expectations are now severely low due to the sheer number of horrible patches that the Engineer has received both pre and post them putting out a same day patch notes.

Problem is that ever since the first Ranger people claim they are over powered so the class is continually nerfed to try and balance.

I have geared out 80 engineer,guardian and necro. Lol my thief in WvWvW just blows them away . Waiting patiently on the balance.

plasmacutter.2709:

0/10/0/30/30 ele is the gold standard of how everyone else should be.

Absolutely. Your way alone is the end all, be all of playing the D/D ele and woe to any fool who dares differ or threaten your ideal, let alone those pesky devs!

You’re warning them! You’ll leave! You really truly mean it!

plasmacutter.2709:

If they destroy this build rather than incorporating proper synergy-breakers like corrupt boon is for this build, and adding synergy like this to other builds, I will be forced to conclude ANet is too lazy to enter the AAA mmo arena, and simply leave.

I’ve been let down too many times, and will probably swap to books, because even console games are starting to get nerfed post-launch.

Some of us outgrow gaming. Nothing to be ashamed of. I hope you find what you’re looking for someday.

My main is a PvE-focused warrior and even still, the thing I want patched the most is for other classes to stop being garbage. It is unbelievable how slowly Anet is going about this. Maybe it isn’t surprising considering the state of GW1, but that doesn’t make it any more acceptable.

ranger need a new pet named undead
undead’s ai more useful than pet ai

“JonathanSharp
ArenaNet Poster

1. - 2012/11/20 06:28:40 PM (2012/11/20 13:28:40 UTC-5)
   A while ago Jon Peters said something that has been taken out of context. He said that only two people were working on the things he was working on (which was true – but he meant it differently than how it was received) and people have taken that to mean that we only have 2 people working on balance, or PvP, or both (at this point it’s morphed into different things in different threads).

Based on what was said, I understand how it could have been construed, so I wanted to be as transparent as I can be, so that you know what’s happening inside the studio.

PvP
On the PvP team we have programmers, designers, QA and an environment artist (Darrin Claypool – he’s the guy who just finished making Temple of the Silent Storm). Many PvP features need all members of the team, but some are programmer intensive, or art intensive. For example, while we’re still working on custom arenas and other core features (which involve server programmers, UI programmers and gameplay programmers), designers and artists were able to build the recently released “Temple of the Silent Storm”. Because the map required no code, we simply worked with art, design and sound in order to support this map’s needs. Work on custom arenas requires zero environment art, so those two features (custom arenas and a new map) don’t impact one another greatly, as far as work flow goes.

WvW
For WvW, we have a similar setup. We have designers, QA, programmers and environment artists. WvW is a massive piece of the GW2 pie, and the WvW team is able to focus on WvW needs. While many of us in the company may give feedback/ideas/suggestions to the WvW team, they are the ones who actually implement and carry out those changes.

Balance
When it comes to balance, we have multiple people who give feedback/guidance/suggestions, even though a smaller subset actually implement those changes (which is what Jon was saying in his post). After we have balance meetings, a few of the designers implement the changes. If it’s a WvW change, the WvW designer will implement that change. If it’s a PvP change, one of the PvP designers implements it (again, this is what Jon was saying). If it’s strictly a balance change, then we have a designer do it that has the bandwidth (sometimes it’s me, sometime it’s even Izzy, but usually it’s Karl or Peters). Currently, when we have balance meetings, the following people are present in various combinations, depending on the topic:

Jon Peters – game designer
Karl McLain – game designer
Representatives from the WvW team, including QA and design
Representatives from the dungeon teams, including another game designer
Representatives from the live response team, including QA guys who play ALL aspects of the game A LOT
Other representatives from the PvP team, like Tyler Bearce (designer) and Roy Cronacher (QA)
Izzy – lead designer
Myself – game designer
When we’re in those meetings, we’ll talk about hot topics, and issues that are currently a big issue for a certain piece of content. We also listen to high level players, we read the forums (sometimes we even take the best-written posts, print out 10 copies, and bring them to a balance meeting), and we play the game to get a feel for ourselves. Just because you don’t see a change that YOU want, keep in mind that someone else may disagree. Just because we don’t do every single change YOU want, doesn’t mean we don’t care about you or the game. We just try to make the best changes for the greatest number of players.

I just wanted to clear this up to let you guys know a little bit more of what happens here inside the studio so you understand more of what Peters was trying to say. He’s just as busy as we all are, and with a lot of us gone for Thanksgiving (he’s not here right now), I just took it upon myself to try to clear this up a little.

Cheers"

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/arenanet-tracker/topic/245674-the-teams-that-work-on-pvp-wvw-balance/

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-teams-that-work-on-PvP-WvW-Balance

So it sounds like…. nobody is actually in charge of class balance and everyone just randomly throws ideas out and whatever developer has spare time implements them?

….somehow that’s even worse then having two dedicated class balance guys.

Some forum posters have no clue on how an organisation works around here.
Seriously, i wonder how Anet deals with this amount of bull, day in and out.

Respect.

Eh, I main ranger since launch and I’m having a blast. Might as well try not to run dumbps builds. Stop it really, this isn’t as big of an issue as you people make it sound.

Excellent post by Geotherma.2395. I wish there would be more posts like that. More communication from Anet!

Thumbs up!

Geotherma.2395:

“JonathanSharp
ArenaNet Poster

1. - 2012/11/20 06:28:40 PM (2012/11/20 13:28:40 UTC-5)
   A while ago Jon Peters said something that has been taken out of context. He said that only two people were working on the things he was working on (which was true – but he meant it differently than how it was received) and people have taken that to mean that we only have 2 people working on balance, or PvP, or both (at this point it’s morphed into different things in different threads).

Based on what was said, I understand how it could have been construed, so I wanted to be as transparent as I can be, so that you know what’s happening inside the studio.

PvP
On the PvP team we have programmers, designers, QA and an environment artist (Darrin Claypool – he’s the guy who just finished making Temple of the Silent Storm). Many PvP features need all members of the team, but some are programmer intensive, or art intensive. For example, while we’re still working on custom arenas and other core features (which involve server programmers, UI programmers and gameplay programmers), designers and artists were able to build the recently released “Temple of the Silent Storm”. Because the map required no code, we simply worked with art, design and sound in order to support this map’s needs. Work on custom arenas requires zero environment art, so those two features (custom arenas and a new map) don’t impact one another greatly, as far as work flow goes.

WvW
For WvW, we have a similar setup. We have designers, QA, programmers and environment artists. WvW is a massive piece of the GW2 pie, and the WvW team is able to focus on WvW needs. While many of us in the company may give feedback/ideas/suggestions to the WvW team, they are the ones who actually implement and carry out those changes.

Balance
When it comes to balance, we have multiple people who give feedback/guidance/suggestions, even though a smaller subset actually implement those changes (which is what Jon was saying in his post). After we have balance meetings, a few of the designers implement the changes. If it’s a WvW change, the WvW designer will implement that change. If it’s a PvP change, one of the PvP designers implements it (again, this is what Jon was saying). If it’s strictly a balance change, then we have a designer do it that has the bandwidth (sometimes it’s me, sometime it’s even Izzy, but usually it’s Karl or Peters). Currently, when we have balance meetings, the following people are present in various combinations, depending on the topic:

Jon Peters – game designer
Karl McLain – game designer
Representatives from the WvW team, including QA and design
Representatives from the dungeon teams, including another game designer
Representatives from the live response team, including QA guys who play ALL aspects of the game A LOT
Other representatives from the PvP team, like Tyler Bearce (designer) and Roy Cronacher (QA)
Izzy – lead designer
Myself – game designer
When we’re in those meetings, we’ll talk about hot topics, and issues that are currently a big issue for a certain piece of content. We also listen to high level players, we read the forums (sometimes we even take the best-written posts, print out 10 copies, and bring them to a balance meeting), and we play the game to get a feel for ourselves. Just because you don’t see a change that YOU want, keep in mind that someone else may disagree. Just because we don’t do every single change YOU want, doesn’t mean we don’t care about you or the game. We just try to make the best changes for the greatest number of players.

I just wanted to clear this up to let you guys know a little bit more of what happens here inside the studio so you understand more of what Peters was trying to say. He’s just as busy as we all are, and with a lot of us gone for Thanksgiving (he’s not here right now), I just took it upon myself to try to clear this up a little.

Cheers"

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/arenanet-tracker/topic/245674-the-teams-that-work-on-pvp-wvw-balance/

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-teams-that-work-on-PvP-WvW-Balance

…. I love you _
No, I mean: This was the post I was talking about. Thank you for putting it up.