Guild Wars 2

Before I get started, I would like to remind everyone that this thread is not about class discrimination. I know people look at my siggy and say, “Omg this guy is a thief” and start disreguarding anything I say because this thread somehow translates into me complaining about my class being UP. I also understand that there are people who will see my name and think “Oh its the trolling thief forum warrior again.”

Unfortunately, that isn’t what this is about and I am not going to let this thread be derailed into that. This thread is meant to get people in the frame of mind that balance isn’t as important as some make it out to be. So as a treat to you all, I am not going to argue my class when the subject matter gets popped. Instead I will just report those comments whether they are about my profession or not. Just a fair warning.

Onto the topic at hand…
————————————————————————————————————

I see alot of people complaining that there is a major lack of balance in this game. The story usually turns out as the original poster recently getting outplayed by something, perhaps multiple times in a row, which irritates them enough to make the player log onto the forums and post their complaints. Bandwagoners and anyone else with a small personal vendetta jumps in to support the poster as well.

The term that’s almost guaranteed to be used in this kind of thread is “overpowered”. To reinforce their point, they will use “lack of balance” that “doesn’t reward skill” in “1v1”. If you don’t feel like clicking the link I’ll just give it to you by quote:

dictionary.com

o·ver·pow·er [oh-ver-pou-er] Show IPA
verb (used with object)
1.
to overcome, master, or subdue by superior force: to overpower a maniac.
2.
to overcome or overwhelm in feeling; affect or impress excessively: overpowered with confusion and desire.
3.
to gain mastery over the bodily powers or mental faculties of: a strong drink that quickly overpowered him.
4.
to furnish or equip with excessive power: a giant motor that overpowered the pump.

What do you expect when a game is not built for 1v1? What do you expect when each profession is unique and has greater access to specific aspects of combat than every other profession?

More rewarding content requires groups that have enough knowledge, patience and skill to complete it. Because each profession has their own strengths and drawbacks, every class requires varying amounts of skill to complete said content. It all really depends on the person, the content and the profession being used. Regardless, it forces people to plan before they jump.

So would balancing them for 1v1 do any good? Not really, according to Extra Credits. Balanced games force players into specific strategies which makes gameplay predictable, grindy and boring. Yes, it breaks down combat into a form that rewards skill but in reality, the “skill” players were looking for gets replaced by knowledge of the best available strategies and the ability to execute them rapidly and more efficiently.

Using preset knowledge at the fastest pace possible does not take skill. Creating that preset knowledge does.

But let’s say Anet were to balance this game for player skill/level in combat. One way is to just make no set classes, like in Runescape. Weapon skills will be replaced with a simple auto attack and the extra slots will be for weapon-based utilities. Everyone has access to all weapons and all utility skills so long as they have the appropriate level and weapon equipped to use them.

The meta would then start settling into long ranged combat, a specific gear setup and the best DPS and control for utilities. Kinda like how the Bandos Godsword in Runescape is the best budget weapon in the game. In the quest to make skill more relevant in combat by balancing it, you will have effectively collapsed the jedi curve into an extremely high wall on raised ground. In other words, the skill floor will allow little to no progression on a personal level until you start hitting world-class levels of playing.

The only way to prevent that from happening is trusting in the players ability to adapt and grow skill-wise instead of adjusting everything until people stop complaining. Someone will ALWAYS gripe about petty things so it’s best not to worry about it. Eventually that someone will realize they are not getting anywhere by complaining and either give up or adapt. If that someone chose to adapt, they will build upon what they know until they overcome the very thing they were complaining about.

Skill level is relative but it is also something that is increased through experience.

Now lets talk about another concept that Extra Credits touched upon, “Cyclical Imbalance”.

Cyclical Imbalance is where metas are constantly replaced by setups that become the new meta. Metas often get taken down because people start noticing weaknesses in it. Players will work around that meta and create setups that will eventually become the new meta and continue this cycle.

What drives Cyclical Imbalance is the players’ skill. The creation and posting of new unorthodox builds is the catalyst that starts this cycle that keeps gameplay engaging. It prompts players who keep getting their kitten handed to them to turn around and see what they are doing wrong. This is the first step to building upon a player’s current skills which in turn contributes to the cycle.

Now, GW2 remains unpolished in almost every part of it’s being, albeit getting better over time. We will not see this cycle in full force until Anet finishes tweaking the professions. However, that doesn’t mean that cyclical imbalance doesn’t exist in this game. In WvW, players are starting to build more towards survivability than before when full zerk was the way to go. For some professions, condition builds are becoming the new meta instead of direct damage. All of this will only change as time goes on and everyone will adapt eventually.

So, the next time you scream for balance, go back and figure out how to counter it first. You’de be surprised how minor of a problem it was and you become a better player in the process.

Thanks for reading.

Cyclical imbalance? Must be a pretty long cycle then, because for the past 9 months the best team composition for PvE has been some combination of Mesmer + Warrior + Guardian + something, and for WvW roaming the Thief (no comment on sPvP, because I hate it).

For zergs, you have the clump-together-spam-1 strategy which works exceedingly well, and 90% of zergs use it to great effect. There are a few other ways to zerg (e.g. kite groups) but if there was ‘Cyclical Balance’ we would see more of such strategies appear, then counter-strategies appear to remove that. This is (at least on T2 NA where I am) not the case.

Can’t you get it into your head? People are complaining not because they don’t want to counter it, but because there is no counter (or nothing better in the case of PvE).

If there was a cyclical imbalance, we would see (for example) a surge of roaming Engineers to counter all the roaming Thieves. That’s obviously not happening.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

Games need Parity, not “balance”.

Example in WvW, pointswise, the value of a guardian in a zerg is equal to the value of a thief in denying supply to to the enemy and running havoc. Overall equality in a very large picture.

Situational imbalance will always be there and IMO is a good thing. No way can they make all classes equal at all things. But.. they can have all classes fairly equal at successfully playing the game as a whole.

sPvP, I don’t know. Arenanet split skills between pvp and pve. and perhaps more needs done here to balance that single aspect parity.

I’m getting the feeling that this is in the wrong subforum….
I don’t think that the golden classes for PvE have changed since launch(someone said it before me).

Destroying the “trinity” caused more problems than it solved. When you have a game where every profession is “damage plus healing”, “damage plus conditions”, “damage plus extra damage”, etc., there’s only so much to work with. All professions are balanced, but some professions are more balanced than others.

Sunflowers.1729:

Cyclical imbalance? Must be a pretty long cycle then, because for the past 9 months the best team composition for PvE has been some combination of Mesmer + Warrior + Guardian + something, and for WvW roaming the Thief (no comment on sPvP, because I hate it).

For zergs, you have the clump-together-spam-1 strategy which works exceedingly well, and 90% of zergs use it to great effect. There are a few other ways to zerg (e.g. kite groups) but if there was ‘Cyclical Balance’ we would see more of such strategies appear, then counter-strategies appear to remove that. This is (at least on T2 NA where I am) not the case.

Can’t you get it into your head? People are complaining not because they don’t want to counter it, but because there is no counter (or nothing better in the case of PvE).

If there was a cyclical imbalance, we would see (for example) a surge of roaming Engineers to counter all the roaming Thieves. That’s obviously not happening.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

I never said we had a full-fledged cycle going and I feel you completely missed the part where I stated that this game is very unpolished. It should go without saying that this game has alot of fixing that needs to be done so of course people are going to settle into lazy tactics like zerg 1-spam.

WvW is still unpolished. PvE is still unpolished. Maybe not so much PvP but I havn’t been there in months so I wouldn’t know. The point I was trying to make is that there a cycle going, but its really slow because of how incomplete this game is.

Regardless of that, there is always a counter to everything but like anything else it needs to be worked for. People can’t keep thinking inside the box forever.

Wryog.5073:

I’m getting the feeling that this is in the wrong subforum….
I don’t think that the golden classes for PvE have changed since launch(someone said it before me).

I don’t think it is. Its about the game and players in general so general discussion works best.

Zacchary.6183:

Regardless of that, there is always a counter to everything but like anything else it needs to be worked for. People can’t keep thinking inside the box forever.

This is blatantly untrue.

Sunflowers.1729:

Zacchary.6183:

Regardless of that, there is always a counter to everything but like anything else it needs to be worked for. People can’t keep thinking inside the box forever.

This is blatantly untrue.

I guess you are right in a sense, but then that says something about the people who refuse to do so. (don’t mistake for “can’t”)

Well in some part i can agree with Zacchary.

People tends to shout “omfg this class is beating me, it’s OP” when they refuse to change their builds to face the new meta. We see this everyday. Specially in sPvP and in WvW.

I believe players confuses balance, with class equality. In a game where exists 8 classes, we can’t expect one to beat them all. There are counter builds, that do exactly this. However, i can agree some classes needs tweaking.

Of course he is right to some extent, but to claim that things can’t be overpowered is ridiculous.

League of Legends is pretty balanced by most accounts. Release Xin Zhao was a broken nightmare of ridiculous proportions. Obviously there were still counters to him, but that didn’t keep Riot from hotfixing him almost instantly.

Which ties back in to another point: having counters doesn’t mean it’s can’t be overpowered. As you can see from the example I just gave.

In my opinion players want balance because theres (allegedly) no holy trifecta. Ive been playing TERA (currently weekly maintanance) since i quited GW2 and nobody cares that zerkers pulls out 1 milion criticals and some classes cant even crit for 10% of this becuase they know thier rolles.
In GW2 theres no healer or tank everybody is damage dealer with few utilities and when some class can fill this hybrid rolle better then other classes its a problem
for some players, which i honestly believe cant be fixed. One of the reason why i left GW2 was that there will never be high-level cooperation in PvE without trifecta, its a nice idea but it just doesnt work in MMOs…

The only problem with disregarding balance is that when a clearly superior strategy emerges, it results in the removal of diversity because the rest of the game gets polarized around that strategy. This greatly hinders diversity in the game, instead of fostering it.

For an example: There was an old card game called Duel Masters. For a long time, a single card dominated this whole game, and its name was Corile. It had a simple effect: for the cost of 5 mana, you could summon him, then choose any creature on the field, and put it on top of the owners deck. Pacing meant everything in that game, and this ability to set you back a turn was devastating. It occurred at a crucial point in the game, setting players back a turn using a strange form of creature removal. The problem was compounded with the fact that you could use 4 of them in a 40 card deck, and that through some not-so-clever field manipulation you can use them multiple times, or an infinite number of times.

Setting the opponent back a turn potentially endlessly, combined with the -1 to card advantage it generated, it made it so the entire game was dictated by Corile. It did have one counter: if every creature you controlled generated advantage when summoned, then Corile’s benefit was moot. Because of this, you had to make decks using only creatures that had on-summon effects, or else risk infinite lockdown.

The only time Corile’s reign fell was when the game eventually outpaced Corile, making him too slow to function as a true lockdown. This was not accomplished by some change in present tactics, but through the release of new cards that worked faster to win.

Extra credit erroneously refers to what they have as imbalance. It is not the case. What they are doing is mistaking tactical paper-rock-scissors for imbalance. The idea of this is that A is beaten by B which is beaten by C which is beate n by D, repeating until eventually X is beaten by A again. It can be something as simple as a direct game rule, something as mediocre as an elemental system, or something as complex as situational weaknesses combined with precise tactics and prediction via a proper tool set.

The latter is what everyone should aim for. They shouldn’t make something imbalanced and just watch as it dominates the game in hopes that eventually someone else will become useful along the line.

BadHabitZz.1856:

In my opinion players want balance because theres (allegedly) no holy trifecta. Ive been playing TERA (currently weekly maintanance) since i quited GW2 and nobody cares that zerkers pulls out 1 milion criticals and some classes cant even crit for 10% of this becuase they know thier rolles.
In GW2 theres no healer or tank everybody is damage dealer with few utilities and when some class can fill this hybrid rolle better then other classes its a problem for some players which i honestly believe cant be fixed. One of the reason why i left GW2 was that there will never be high-level cooperation in PvE without trifecta…

I’m sorry, but this is a big load of BS.

Trinity isn’t needed to create teamwork.
Players were lead to believe that running things with the highest possible dps is the best, but that isn’t quite the truth. Support happens and it’s quite better!

It’s a matter of mentalities! Players shouldn’t be forced to go with a predestined class (dps, tanking or healing). In this game they can choose to be more supportive, more tankier or more dpsing, but not exclusively!

LHound.8964:

BadHabitZz.1856:

In my opinion players want balance because theres (allegedly) no holy trifecta. Ive been playing TERA (currently weekly maintanance) since i quited GW2 and nobody cares that zerkers pulls out 1 milion criticals and some classes cant even crit for 10% of this becuase they know thier rolles.
In GW2 theres no healer or tank everybody is damage dealer with few utilities and when some class can fill this hybrid rolle better then other classes its a problem for some players which i honestly believe cant be fixed. One of the reason why i left GW2 was that there will never be high-level cooperation in PvE without trifecta…

I’m sorry, but this is a big load of BS.

Trinity isn’t needed to create teamwork.
Players were lead to believe that running things with the highest possible dps is the best, but that isn’t quite the truth. Support happens and it’s quite better!

It’s a matter of mentalities! Players shouldn’t be forced to go with a predestined class (dps, tanking or healing). In this game they can choose to be more supportive, more tankier or more dpsing, but not exclusively!

Its ok its your opinion for me game without trifecta didnt worked…Also atelast in tera its not about mentality the end game content is soo hardcore you need experienced tanks and healers (well dd have to be exp too but healers and tanks are crucial) and some ppl love those rolles so i dont think they are forced to anything
Once i tough GW2 have some hard team-work based content, then i tried Manyas Core in TERA and honestly its a whole another level compared to anything in GW2 (lvl 80 fractals are joke compared to this…)

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Games need Parity, not “balance”.

Example in WvW, pointswise, the value of a guardian in a zerg is equal to the value of a thief in denying supply to to the enemy and running havoc. Overall equality in a very large picture.

Situational imbalance will always be there and IMO is a good thing. No way can they make all classes equal at all things. But.. they can have all classes fairly equal at successfully playing the game as a whole.

sPvP, I don’t know. Arenanet split skills between pvp and pve. and perhaps more needs done here to balance that single aspect parity.

Completely agree and I believe the same applies to sPvP. Sometimes people seem to ignore the fact sPvP is a team effort as well. Some professions can have a hard time on their own no doubt. Warriors deal tons of damage but need to get within range first. A warrior on its own can suffer there no doubt but pair it with say a necro who just blinds a bit / interrupts / fears in the direction of the warrior and suddenly team play removes that downside the warrior has leaving it with massive damage output they’re well known for.

I think balance is a tricky thing to talk about when you dont have simple 1v1.

Zacchary.6183:

I see alot of people complaining that there is a major lack of balance in this game. The story usually turns out as the original poster recently getting outplayed by something, perhaps multiple times in a row, which irritates them enough to make the player log onto the forums and post their complaints. Bandwagoners and anyone else with a small personal vendetta jumps in to support the poster as well.

The term that’s almost guaranteed to be used in this kind of thread is ""overpowered"

Whats the difference ?
Thief will say that he is skilled thus he outplayed other player. Other player will say that thief is overpowered. Who is right ? How can you measure the outplay thing ? Do you have input data from the other player so you can count down that you outplayed him ? NO
But what all have is the game mechanics (combat, skills, classes…) and you can compare those regarding to all classes and by this comparision you can actually get to the result that some classes are OP in some aspect of the game
got it ?

The “Thief” balance issue is really a simple one.

In general, nearly all other skill in this game can be countered directly by another skill. There is no counter/protection against Shadow Step and Stealth.

Now, give Engineers a Glue Turret and a Paint Spray Turret that will outline all stealth rogues and glue them to a spot that does not allow the use of Shadow Return, I think that would make most players happy.

More specifically, GW2 balance is “broken” in the sense that this game is mostly about if not all about damage. Berserker Gear is simply better than everything. The Healing/Toughness/Vitality stats are useless because they offer next to nothing. Our best bet will always be to kill before being killed.

Thief is capable of planning an escape route before engaging a target, maximize damage and if something goes wrong, run away and try again. AND THERE IS NOTHING TO STOP ME (aside from Lag =P). Rogue skill basically gives us all the defense we need and it is more reliable than anything.

So, the problem is not with Thief being overpowered, it is ArenaNet promoting damage, damage and more damage. Thief is simply the best class to deal them rapidly and escape. Since there is no stats, skill or equipment to stop the Thief… well >:)

perfect imbalance or cyclical imbalance as used in extra credits is a really terrible term for what they were talking about because it gives people the idea that it is somehow the opposite of balance when in reality it’s just a different type of balance. A better term would be Non-transitive Balance which comes from mathematical term Nontransitive game, which is something like Rock Paper Scissors. Which option in Rock Paper Scissors is actually more powerful? None, they are all perfectly balanced. But if you were to solely compare them in pairs, you would be under the impression that one was inferior to the other. This sort of comparative weakness allows for vast metagames to emerge, and many successful games that rely on strategy often have multiple layers of nontransitivity going on. So please, let’s not call it imbalance, it’s confusing and not really accurate.

That being said, nontransitive balance works best in a competitive setting. The reason for this is because players can naturally adapt their strategy to counter what is commonly being used by other players. In a cooperative (or solo) game, if a single profession or whatever can’t be used to overcome all possible obstacles (since the obstacles generally aren’t going to change to counter you) it suddenly becomes useless and nobody wants it, or vice versa if it counters everything by itself. When the balance isn’t done right, you end up with a Hammer that can counter everything. This generally comes up by ignoring the way different stats interact outside of the direct RPS relationship (speed and attack damage being regular culprits).

This sort of balance is really hard to do, as the more complex the system involved, the more difficult to maintain. So if you are going for this sort of balance, you can choose to either keep the system as simple as possible so as to keep it maintainable, or you make it so complicated that it could take forever for someone to find a Hammer.

Removing secondary professions and making the party size top out at 5 makes the system simpler and easier to maintain, but due to being able to boost the different parts of the damage formula with equipment, it causes tremendous imbalances, especially combined with the fact that damage is the only way the game can count your participation. So there are some systemic issues that would need to be solved before this sort of balance could be completely achieved. Even if this sort of balance was really created, it would probably have to be noticeably different between the gameplay modes.

Makai.3429:

Destroying the “trinity” caused more problems than it solved. When you have a game where every profession is “damage plus healing”, “damage plus conditions”, “damage plus extra damage”, etc., there’s only so much to work with. All professions are balanced, but some professions are more balanced than others.

Guild wars 2 still has a trinity, a lot of people like you don’t understand it. Guild wars 2 simple got rid of tank, healing and replaced it with it’s own trinity Damage, support and control. It still has a trinity, it is just that the trinity isn’t forced down your throat. I don’t need random kitten X to play the content, I can play the content with any class.

With that said, UNFORTUNATELY, PvE encounters significantly favors damage OVER the other 2 parts of the trinity. Right now most encounters except AR, significantly favor glass canons versus all other forms. To fix that, the current and future encounters would have to completely be redesigned.

With that said, it is still better than games with tank and healers because generally speaking you are usually only doing one role 100% of the time, compare to guild wars 2 where you can do other roles. The only time in a typical WOW-like game you ever car what the other players are doing is when they are kittening up.

The Talcmaster.7391:

perfect imbalance or cyclical imbalance as used in extra credits is a really terrible term for what they were talking about because it gives people the idea that it is somehow the opposite of balance when in reality it’s just a different type of balance. A better term would be Non-transitive Balance which comes from mathematical term Nontransitive game, which is something like Rock Paper Scissors. Which option in Rock Paper Scissors is actually more powerful? None, they are all perfectly balanced. But if you were to solely compare them in pairs, you would be under the impression that one was inferior to the other. This sort of comparative weakness allows for vast metagames to emerge, and many successful games that rely on strategy often have multiple layers of nontransitivity going on. So please, let’s not call it imbalance, it’s confusing and not really accurate.

more stuff

I actually like the way you described this. At some point in writing, I was going to make a RPS example but it was getting late so I cut it out. I am going to put this into the post if you don’t mind.

@ matemaster

I am not going to argue my class when the subject matter gets popped. Instead I will just report those comments whether they are about my profession or not. Just a fair warning.

Zacchary: You have just made my day! It’s so nice to see that someone else on these forums understands how balance works. Thank you for taking the time to write this up! I agreed with literally everything you just said.

On a side note-I had a friend who made a statement about a certain game (I won’t say the name) that was very wise. He said, “X game is so balanced that it sucks.” When you think about it, it’s very true. Too balanced of a game is simply no fun in my opinion (and his, apparently) because there is no longer an underdog or an “overdog” (if you will.) There remains no longer any challenge.

Anyways…thanks again Zacchary!

Zacchary.6183:

I know people look at my siggy and say, “Omg this guy is a thief” and start disreguarding anything I say because this thread somehow translates into me complaining about my class being UP. I also understand that there are people who will see my name and think “Oh its the trolling thief forum warrior again.”

You are a thief player giving arguments as to why you think ArenaNet should not nerf your profession.

I’m sorry. I truly am, because I don’t think you have even realized it yourself. But you have taken a very broad subject, that of balance in a game, and reduced it to a very small circunstance, that happens to be exactly the state of thieves in WvW (and a bit in sPvP). Most of what you mentioned, if not all of it, does not apply outside that specific scenario.

Let me give you an example: Assassins in the original Guild Wars. Assassins were the profession introduced by ArenaNet to fit the “rogue” archetype; but the issue is, said archetype is basically the ganker, a role that simply does not work in PvE. As expected, the assassin was a very weak profession in PvE, outperformed in nearly everything by the others.

What did ArenaNet do, then, to fix Assassins? They gave the profession invulnerability – Shadow Form -, something that actually goes 100% against the “rogue” archetype, and that also happened to be incredibly overpowered in PvE. This had a massive number of issues:

• Shadow Form assassins became required when playing a lot of the content in the game with PUGs. For large parts of the PvE content that people actually played with each other, Shadow Form was used as a way to make the game easier, or theorically easier even when the assassin actually made it more time consuming, not less. This greatly reduced variety in groups when playing PvE with other players.

• Assassins who wanted to play in PvE with a build other than Shadow Form were nto accepted. This greatly reduced variety for the assassin players themselves when playing with PUGs.

• The Shadow Form assassin was the most efficient farming tool in many areas of the game, allowing people to make small fortunes by using this. Needless to say, this didn’t exactly help the game’s economy.

• And, ironically, assassins were still completely broken outside of Shadow Form. This is by far the worst issue here – ArenaNet’s single fix to assassins was to give them Shadow Form, instead of trying to fix everything else that was wrong with the profession. This means that everyone not using Shadow Form still had the exact same issues to deal with – finding yourself unable to use a lot of your skills due to them being sequential combos that required hitting the same enemy in order to progress through the chain, for example, only to see that any half decent group of heroes would kill your target before you could use even the second skill in your combo, and the AI was not smart enough to allow you to tell them to go kill an enemy while you dealt with another.

This was, in many ways, a massive imbalance in the original Guild Wars.

What does your post tell us about this situation?

Nothing.

Balancing for 1vs1? This is PvE, 1vs1 is irrelevant. Players should learn counters? This is PvE, the enemy AI won’t suddently learn a counter to Shadow Form nor will it become dumber to deal with any other assassin build. “Cyclical Imbalance”? That’s as relevant to the scenario I described as “banana pie”.

I could give multiple similar examples using the original Guild Wars – Ritualists and Signet of Spirits, Paragons and “There is Nothing to Fear!”, dervishes and their overhaul, Ursan Blessing, and so on. Issues that had significant impact on all players of a given profession through the entire story of the game. And all issues that your post has absolutely nothing to do with.

Everything you said – is about only a very small aspect of balance. It’s only about the specific kind of scenario such as thieves currently are in WvW. It doesn’t cover most of the game, or why balance is required for all of Guild Wars 2.

So, let’s end this idea called “Balance”? No, let’s not. Due to reasons that go far, far beyond what you covered in your post.

Erasculio.2914:

Zacchary.6183:

I know people look at my siggy and say, “Omg this guy is a thief” and start disreguarding anything I say because this thread somehow translates into me complaining about my class being UP. I also understand that there are people who will see my name and think “Oh its the trolling thief forum warrior again.”

You are a thief player giving arguments as to why you think ArenaNet should not nerf your profession.

I’m sorry. I truly am, because I don’t think you have even realized it yourself. But you have taken a very broad subject, that of balance in a game, and reduced it to a very small circunstance, that happens to be exactly the state of thieves in WvW (and a bit in sPvP). Most of what you mentioned, if not all of it, does not apply outside that specific scenario.

Let me give you an example: Assassins in the original Guild Wars. Assassins were the profession introduced by ArenaNet to fit the “rogue” archetype; but the issue is, said archetype is basically the ganker, a role that simply does not work in PvE. As expected, the assassin was a very weak profession in PvE, outperformed in nearly everything by the others.

What did ArenaNet do, then, to fix Assassins? They gave the profession invulnerability – Shadow Form -, something that actually goes 100% against the “rogue” archetype, and that also happened to be incredibly overpowered in PvE. This had a massive number of issues:

• Shadow Form assassins became required when playing a lot of the content in the game with PUGs. For large parts of the PvE content that people actually played with each other, Shadow Form was used as a way to make the game easier, or theorically easier even when the assassin actually made it more time consuming, not less. This greatly reduced variety in groups when playing PvE with other players.

• Assassins who wanted to play in PvE with a build other than Shadow Form were nto accepted. This greatly reduced variety for the assassin players themselves when playing with PUGs.

• The Shadow Form assassin was the most efficient farming tool in many areas of the game, allowing people to make small fortunes by using this. Needless to say, this didn’t exactly help the game’s economy.

• And, ironically, assassins were still completely broken outside of Shadow Form. This is by far the worst issue here – ArenaNet’s single fix to assassins was to give them Shadow Form, instead of trying to fix everything else that was wrong with the profession. This means that everyone not using Shadow Form still had the exact same issues to deal with – finding yourself unable to use a lot of your skills due to them being sequential combos that required hitting the same enemy in order to progress through the chain, for example, only to see that any half decent group of heroes would kill your target before you could use even the second skill in your combo, and the AI was not smart enough to allow you to tell them to go kill an enemy while you dealt with another.

This was, in many ways, a massive imbalance in the original Guild Wars.

What does your post tell us about this situation?

Nothing.

Balancing for 1vs1? This is PvE, 1vs1 is irrelevant. Players should learn counters? This is PvE, the enemy AI won’t suddently learn a counter to Shadow Form nor will it become dumber to deal with any other assassin build. “Cyclical Imbalance”? That’s as relevant to the scenario I described as “banana pie”.

I could give multiple similar examples using the original Guild Wars – Ritualists and Signet of Spirits, Paragons and “There is Nothing to Fear!”, dervishes and their overhaul, Ursan Blessing, and so on. Issues that had significant impact on all players of a given profession through the entire story of the game. And all issues that your post has absolutely nothing to do with.

Everything you said – is about only a very small aspect of balance. It’s only about the specific kind of scenario such as thieves currently are in WvW. It doesn’t cover most of the game, or why balance is required for all of Guild Wars 2.

I’m sorry. Explain yourself. I thought his post was very relevant. You can’t just say it “is about only a very small aspect of balance” and then not back up that statement. His post was literally a “balance 101” kind of post. Let’s hear some evidence because I totally disagree.

MightyMicah.7451:

I’m sorry. Explain yourself. I thought his post was very relevant. You can’t just say it “is about only a very small aspect of balance” and then not back up that statement.

Try reading the rest of my post?

@ Erasculio

Last time I checked, combat is the biggest part of GW2. Balance within combat is good for it to a point but treating it like it is the most important thing for it will kill it. That is the point I try to make here, but I guess you just couldn’t resist bringing it up.

In a game with multiple classes, there is absolutely no doubt that each profession will have its own strengths. Some classes have more strengths than others. Players fail to realize this when they confront those classes with jealous posts asking for nerfs. Guess what… they used those strengths to outplay them.

Why do you think I talked about the term overpowered?

3 out of 4 definitions scream, “You got your kitten whooped”. It’s something the original posters of those topics almost never takes into account.

FYI: I said I wasn’t going to argue about specific professions on a topic that isn’t about specific professions. Perhaps you should read my entire post instead of just reading a title, picking out a piece of the disclaimer and writing about something completely off topic.

Zacchary.6183:

3 out of 4 definitions scream, “You got your kitten whooped”. It’s something the original posters of those topics almost never takes into account.

Cool story bro, but what does that have anything to do with the example I mentioned, about assassins in the original Guild Wars? I had an assassin character, they were extremely overpowered in a given moment of the game, yet it was not something good for me – even being an assassin player – nor for the game as a whole. What do your statements have to do with that kind of scenario?

IMO, nothing. You are writing a reply to a topic saying “Please nerf thieves, they are overpowered in PvP”. That’s part of balance – but not all of balance, and not even most of balance. Balance isn’t just a matter of nerfing or not whatever people think is imbalanced in a 1vs1 PvP scenario, but rather something that deals with fixing what is broken in the entire game.

Erasculio.2914:

Zacchary.6183:

3 out of 4 definitions scream, “You got your kitten whooped”. It’s something the original posters of those topics almost never takes into account.

Cool story bro, but what does that have anything to do with the example I mentioned, about assassins in the original Guild Wars? I had an assassin character, they were extremely overpowered in a given moment of the game, yet it was not something good for me – even being an assassin player – nor for the game as a whole. What do your statements have to do with that kind of scenario?

IMO, nothing. You are writing a reply to a topic saying “Please nerf thieves, they are overpowered in PvP”. That’s part of balance – but not all of balance, and not even most of balance. Balance isn’t just a matter of nerfing or not whatever people think is imbalanced in a 1vs1 PvP scenario, but rather something that deals with fixing what is broken in the entire game.

What does the comment I replied to have to do with the topic? This thread is about balance in general. Not another “dis kitten OP” thread. Nice job derailing and enjoy your infractions.

Zacchary.6183:

This thread is about balance in general. Not another “dis kitten OP” thread. Nice job derailing and enjoy your infractions.

You aren’t a moderator… Nor is it against the forum rules to disagree with you.

Let me repeat myself: you have a very narrow view of balance. You appears to think that “balance” means listening to people when they say that a given profession who beat them is overpowered. That’s far from being all of balance – there are massive issues in PvE that rise from a lack of balance in that game mode, issues that go beyond a simple “profession X is overpowered”/“profession X is underpowered”.

You can’t ask people to throw away the idea of balance due to some concepts that only really apply in PvP.

I’m talking about balance in general. You however are not and not only are you off topic, you are derailing this thread.

If you wanna complain about thieves and assassins, you can make your own topics in the general discussion, suggestions or the thief forum. Until then I am just going to keep reporting your comments.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Games need Parity, not “balance”.

Example in WvW, pointswise, the value of a guardian in a zerg is equal to the value of a thief in denying supply to to the enemy and running havoc. Overall equality in a very large picture.

Situational imbalance will always be there and IMO is a good thing. No way can they make all classes equal at all things. But.. they can have all classes fairly equal at successfully playing the game as a whole.

sPvP, I don’t know. Arenanet split skills between pvp and pve. and perhaps more needs done here to balance that single aspect parity.

Exactly This.

Iam sick of all the complains of stealth, fear, burn, reta.

When people get that every class has its own value in some aspect of this game, will stop complaining about balance.

Zacchary.6183:

I’m talking about balance in general. You however are not and not only are you off topic, you are derailing this thread.

See, you are not talking about balance in general. When you say:

Zacchary.6183:

So, the next time you scream for balance, go back and figure out how to counter it first.

…You are talking about PvP.

When you say:

Zacchary.6183:

The story usually turns out as the original poster recently getting outplayed by something, perhaps multiple times in a row, which irritates them enough to make the player log onto the forums and post their complaints.

…Not only are you talking about a very specific situation, you are also talking about why should ArenaNet not nerf something that people claim to be overpowered.

That’s not balance in general.

Ergo, your entire premise is flawed. You are working from a very simplistic point of view. You are ignoring PvE. You are ignoring situations in which a profession can be both overpowered and underpowered. You are doing all that, and asking people to give up on having a balanced game.

That’s not going to happen.

Balancing the game is far more complex than that. It’s not only a matter of nerfing what’s overpowered or buffing what’s underpowered. It’s not just a matter of making sure everything has a counter. It’s making sure there are multiple viable builds for a given profession, that all professions are desired in multiple aspects of PvE (ideally for different reasons), that no profession has some mechanic that simply doesn’t work with everything else in the game.

I was using assassins in GW1 as an example. The same example could be told using ritualists, paragons, dervishes, or the PvE only skill Ursan Blessing. Your post fails to account for any of those scenarios. You are actually focusing, whether you realize it or not, on why ArenaNet should not nerf thieves.

ITT: Thief talks about how balance isn’t important to avoid changing the status quo. Report away, I’m well within my rights of saying this. Best yet, it’s totally true.

Erasculio.2914:

I was using assassins in GW1 as an example. The same example could be told using ritualists, paragons, dervishes, or the PvE only skill Ursan Blessing. Your post fails to account for any of those scenarios. You are actually focusing, whether you realize it or not, on why ArenaNet should not nerf thieves.

And the same could be said about Guardians, Rangers, Mesmers, Engineers, Thieves, Necromancers, Warriors, Elementalists, Hunters, Paladins, Rouges, Death Knights, Priests, Druids, etc. because they all have their own strengths. Those who use those strengths effectively will cause those classes to seem overpowered.

Yes, you are using assassins as as an example but you are also basing my intentions off of a disclaimer. That disclaimer was solely meant to warn people that assume and discriminate a post based on the author to not assume and discriminate my post. If you took it like it was meant to be taken and read the rest of the post, you would see that the topic applies to any QQ thread.

Although, I don’t blame people for assuming that since most of those topics are based on a PvP basis.

Sil.4560:

ITT: Thief talks about how balance isn’t important to avoid changing the status quo. Report away, I’m well within my rights of saying this. Best yet, it’s totally true.

Not really.

Zacchary.6183:

And the same could be said about Guardians, Rangers, Mesmers, Engineers, Thieves, Necromancers, Warriors, Elementalists, Hunters, Paladins, Rouges, Death Knights, Priests, Druids, etc. because they all have their own strengths. Those who use those strengths effectively will cause those classes to seem overpowered.

Not really.

The issues I’m talking about aren’t just a matter of a given profession being overpowered or underpowered. Assassins in GW1 were given one overpowered skill – Shadow Form – and were left with incredibly underpowered and disfunctional mechanics, as if one overpowered skill were enough to fix them. The same thing happened with Ritualists and Signet of Spirits, and the same thing happened with Paragons and “There is Nothing to Fear!”.

Meanwhile, warriors in GW2 don’t have that kind of issue. Neither do Guardians, or Thieves, for the records.

The answers to imbalanced you described – learn to counter, wait until the meta fixes itself, and so on – don’t apply to the issues those GW1 professions had. Your solutions don’t account for everything. ArenaNet needs to change the game once in a while, in order to fix issues that are big enough.

First of all, while I respect Extra Credits view on balance and believe it’s a very applicable theory in game design, I do not think it’s a holy grail and/or infallible in any fashion. GW2 has major issues that extend beyond the premise of Extra Credits’ thesis.

While I don’t believe the classes are so poorly balanced that the game is irreparable or any such, the removing of the holy trinity and blending of class roles absolutely introduced a number of problems and lowered the quality of pve compared to the intricate details present in GW1.

There are disparities between classes. There are presently things for which there are few, if any counters. Not everything has a counter, which is usually when ANet steps in and releases a patch. Of course, yes, they are guilty of trying to homogenize the classes too far to a certain extent, but we have a game at present where we have classes that are better at certain things… but only one thing is terribly important to the progress of the game.

Engineers are better at versatility… but versatility is rarely useful for PVE. Thieves are better at stealth… but stealth is rarely useful for PVE.

The classes get their chance to shine in PVP and WvW, perhaps, but the argument that balance is inherently a bad design concept I think is, itself, inherently a poor argument for certain cases and can’t just be broadly applied.

Makai.3429:

Destroying the “trinity” caused more problems than it solved. When you have a game where every profession is “damage plus healing”, “damage plus conditions”, “damage plus extra damage”, etc., there’s only so much to work with. All professions are balanced, but some professions are more balanced than others.

I actually have to agree that going away from the “Holy Trinity” wasn’t the best thing (imo).

Games before used it, GW1 used it, and besides having to find the other person to fit the trinity, it worked very efficiently, and usually teams who were balanced won the match/dungeon etc. Everyone had a role that was filled and I liked that.

Zacchary.6183:

Not really.

lulz

You people are always so quick to cry “character assassination” or “ad hominem” forgetting that it needs to be used in place of an argument with an intent to discredit you. I really don’t care to argue your ridiculous thread one way or another. It’s plain as day what your underlying motives are; you try to present yourself as oh-so-different from everyone else making the same arguments and all I’m doing is laughing at you.

Fun read so far.
However you’re all somewhat wrong. Counters are a good way to balance – sure. So are the Anet implemented methods.
Do you know what you’re all missing? Why you’re not getting all of it?
Because you’ve started from a wrong premise. This one :

" Yes, it breaks down combat into a form that rewards skill but in reality, the “skill” players were looking for gets replaced by knowledge of the best available strategies and the ability to execute them rapidly and more efficiently."

Now read this :
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skill

“2skill noun
Definition of SKILL

1
obsolete : cause, reason
2
a : the ability to use one’s knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance
b : dexterity or coordination especially in the execution of learned physical tasks
3
: a learned power of doing something competently : a developed aptitude or ability <language skills> "

You think using knowledge to constantly change the meta is skill. It is not. That my friend is called careful planning, dedicated research and proper simulation.

Skill is a more organic notion, as stated above it is using the knowledge that you ALREADY have and executing it with machine like accuracy. It is having dexterity, speed, coordination and practice. It is the competent execution of a physical task.

To put this in real world military terms – you mistake planning for fighting. Planning is one thing – you draw up maps, distribute forces and logistics. Fighting is actually shooting, taking cover and so on.
Of course they both overlap a bit – but that’s not the point. An effective soldier does not plan while he’s supposed to be running and shooting and does not shoot when he should plan.

I see a lot of you never play competitive games – otherwise you would have known this.
The meta of the game is not something the individual player will be working with. It all comes down to the few dozens of theorycrafters that decide that THIS or THAT will be played. If you’re smart enough you can do that. But the vast majority of players isn’t – and just want to play what others have proven to be " best " or what’s “comfortable” to them.

Skill – as I defined it is something each player can aspire too. From the 12 year old player that can’t even do basic math to the college degree guy who aced CS. All of them have a chance because it’s something innately human. The ability to use your inherent effector ( hands ) to execute a task with speed and efficiency. That my friends is true skill. The kind you can master and improve.
The kind that separates the " this guy got so stomped " from the " I don’t understand how he’s doing that".

So – discuss balance all you want – it might be right or wrong. But just start out with the basics covered next time

Zacchary.6183:

What does the comment I replied to have to do with the topic? This thread is about balance in general. Not another “dis kitten OP” thread. Nice job derailing and enjoy your infractions.

So you would like to have a serious argument on balance and in-balance, only you want no examples brought up? Examples are at the heart of any argument. A would think a seemly intelligent person as yourself would realize this. FYI: you can’t receive infractions for adding to an argument one way or another.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The only problem with disregarding balance is that when a clearly superior strategy emerges, it results in the removal of diversity because the rest of the game gets polarized around that strategy. This greatly hinders diversity in the game, instead of fostering it.

This paragraph should have ended this thread. Truth.

I really dislike the idea of counter classes. Counter specs(bunker>burst>condition>bunker for example) are better IMO. Just give every profession something different in those roles for variety.
BTW there’s a painfully obvious and easy(also VERY lazy) way of fixing dungeon groups. It has probably been mentioned already. Just giving every profession a different buff that they give to allies within X range would be enough to get some class variety instead of stacking 3 professions. However that’s the lazy WoWish way of fixing it and it could also cause more imbalance in PvP/WvW roaming.

Zacchary, please let me start by saying that I have a matching/similar position. I suggest there is only one bias-free type of balance required: exploitable imbalance. The explanation of how a thief may sneak out of a combat situation (to the great frustration of most of the people who play against them.) My counter has become to spin around in circles and guess where their best course of exit would be… and the more I do it, the better I get. BUT, if there is a skill that gives one profession a distinct, unintended, super power, I see that as an exploit in the intention of the game, not just a failure to vanilla-ize all the classes into equality.

I feel that PvE is suffering because of the balances focused on PvP. In PvE, it isn’t a huge deal if a short bow fires the same distance as a long bow (since we are supposedly working together in PvE, not competing), but in PvE it may have a huge impact. Separating the skills, a la GW1, feels like the best solution to this.

I have all 8 classes, with only the thief below 80. My personal favourites are Guardian and Ranger, but I find that each brings its own strengths and weaknesses, and all are completely playable in the PvE world. It took time to learn about these differences, but it is possible.

Now that I’ve started playing PvP, I am understanding more the potential reasons for the “outcry” after each nerf. It makes a much bigger difference. Once again – split PvP and PvE.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that WvW is tied to PvE instead of PvP. PvE is “help others,” while PvP and WvW are “kill others.” If a PvE profession is underpowered, it will be at a disadvantage in WvW. Is this where players are crying out the pain of their profession being underpowered?

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

Zacchary, please let me start by saying that I have a matching/similar position. I suggest there is only one bias-free type of balance required: exploitable imbalance. The explanation of how a thief may sneak out of a combat situation (to the great frustration of most of the people who play against them.) My counter has become to spin around in circles and guess where their best course of exit would be… and the more I do it, the better I get. BUT, if there is a skill that gives one profession a distinct, unintended, super power, I see that as an exploit in the intention of the game, not just a failure to vanilla-ize all the classes into equality.

I feel that PvE is suffering because of the balances focused on PvP. In PvE, it isn’t a huge deal if a short bow fires the same distance as a long bow (since we are supposedly working together in PvE, not competing), but in PvE it may have a huge impact. Separating the skills, a la GW1, feels like the best solution to this.

I have all 8 classes, with only the thief below 80. My personal favourites are Guardian and Ranger, but I find that each brings its own strengths and weaknesses, and all are completely playable in the PvE world. It took time to learn about these differences, but it is possible.

Now that I’ve started playing PvP, I am understanding more the potential reasons for the “outcry” after each nerf. It makes a much bigger difference. Once again – split PvP and PvE.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that WvW is tied to PvE instead of PvP. PvE is “help others,” while PvP and WvW are “kill others.” If a PvE profession is underpowered, it will be at a disadvantage in WvW. Is this where players are crying out the pain of their profession being underpowered?

Thank you for not just pointing out specific professions/strengths and then calling them OP. Hopefully the rest of the comments do the same.

As for your question, most of that tends to come from WvW but depending on the profession there are gripes from PvP and PvE as well. I think what the UP complaints come from is that not every profession can eat damage like others can and not every profession can deal damage like others can and these major divides between professions can cause some envy.

That’s just how I see it anyway.

BTW why do people keep talking about stealth/thieves? Stealth balance threads that way →
I don’t like thieves either but mentioning stealth and talking about thieves just because the OP is a thief is wrong. He’s obviously not defending his class/mechanic, he’s defending an idea.

Amun Ra.6435:

Zacchary.6183:

What does the comment I replied to have to do with the topic? This thread is about balance in general. Not another “dis kitten OP” thread. Nice job derailing and enjoy your infractions.

So you would like to have a serious argument on balance and in-balance, only you want no examples brought up? Examples are at the heart of any argument. A would think a seemly intelligent person as yourself would realize this. FYI: you can’t receive infractions for adding to an argument one way or another.

I would like examples, yes. But I would like examples that relate to the topic at hand. The example posted earlier was stemmed from the assumption that this is another “QQ don’t nurf theef” thread when it was clearly stated that it wasn’t.

That example could have explained why people think Thieves (maybe even Guardians and Mesmers too) are OP and then come up with counter-examples to compliment them. Instead it was a “thieves are OP” comment which is not only off topic but it will derail this thread like all the others.

Wryog.5073:

BTW why do people keep talking about stealth/thieves? Stealth balance threads that way ->
I don’t like thieves either but mentioning stealth and talking about thieves just because the OP is a thief is wrong. He’s obviously not defending his class/mechanic, he’s defending an idea.

This! Thank you!

Wryog.5073:

I really dislike the idea of counter classes. Counter specs(bunker>burst>condition>bunker for example) are better IMO. Just give every profession something different in those roles for variety.
BTW there’s a painfully obvious and easy(also VERY lazy) way of fixing dungeon groups. It has probably been mentioned already. Just giving every profession a different buff that they give to allies within X range would be enough to get some class variety instead of stacking 3 professions. However that’s the lazy WoWish way of fixing it and it could also cause more imbalance in PvP/WvW roaming.

Yep I agreed, I don’t ever want to see another lazy WoWish way ever again.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

Zacchary, please let me start by saying that I have a matching/similar position. I suggest there is only one bias-free type of balance required: exploitable imbalance. The explanation of how a thief may sneak out of a combat situation (to the great frustration of most of the people who play against them.) My counter has become to spin around in circles and guess where their best course of exit would be… and the more I do it, the better I get. BUT, if there is a skill that gives one profession a distinct, unintended, super power, I see that as an exploit in the intention of the game, not just a failure to vanilla-ize all the classes into equality.

I feel that PvE is suffering because of the balances focused on PvP. In PvE, it isn’t a huge deal if a short bow fires the same distance as a long bow (since we are supposedly working together in PvE, not competing), but in PvE it may have a huge impact. Separating the skills, a la GW1, feels like the best solution to this.

I have all 8 classes, with only the thief below 80. My personal favourites are Guardian and Ranger, but I find that each brings its own strengths and weaknesses, and all are completely playable in the PvE world. It took time to learn about these differences, but it is possible.

Now that I’ve started playing PvP, I am understanding more the potential reasons for the “outcry” after each nerf. It makes a much bigger difference. Once again – split PvP and PvE.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that WvW is tied to PvE instead of PvP. PvE is “help others,” while PvP and WvW are “kill others.” If a PvE profession is underpowered, it will be at a disadvantage in WvW. Is this where players are crying out the pain of their profession being underpowered?

It is a big deal if a short bow or any other weapon/skill/trait is changed in PVE as well. You may not know this but class balance makes people want or not want you in a group. If your class is broken in PVE for the sake of PVP you can no longer play and enjoy the class you want.
Why do you think any serious PVE meta today has : warrior/guardians/mesmers and everything else outside of that is situational at best.
Also what you said about WvW is true.

Anet’s fails so far have been because they’re trying to balance all of it at the same time instead of individually. Why should sPVP have anything to do with WvW and PVE?.
Separate balance is the key. Each type of gameplay has its own balance – each is fun to its own playerbase. I’ve had people who ONLY pvp and people who ONLY PVE. Why hurt both categories by trying to please them all and in the end pleasing neither?

Zacchary.6183:

I see alot of people complaining that there is a major lack of balance in this game. The story usually turns out as the original poster recently getting outplayed by something, perhaps multiple times in a row, which irritates them enough to make the player log onto the forums and post their complaints. Bandwagoners and anyone else with a small personal vendetta jumps in to support the poster as well.

The term that’s almost guaranteed to be used in this kind of thread is “overpowered”. To reinforce their point, they will use “lack of balance” that “doesn’t reward skill” in “1v1”.

I just wanted to check before jumping to conclusions, but are you implying people who cite this terminology in reference to anything GW2 are deluded in opinion?

Because I strongly object to that notion, in-fact I’m taking it as a personal insult!

Just wanted to clarify before further posting ^^