(edited by No Walking.6349)
Fun > Balance
Fun is a subjective emotion. Balance is, while subjective since people have to evaluate and decide, more objective and comparable.
Asking for one over the other is futile since you will always get one crowd displeased, especially on both of those subjects which are always hottopics in MMOs.
Asking for seperation of game modes skill wise would make more sense (assuming you are refering to pve balance coming from pvp changes). That’s a different topic though.
Fun is a subjective emotion. Balance is, while subjective since people have to evaluate and decide, more objective and comparable.
Asking for one over the other is futile since you will always get one crowd displeased, especially on both of those subjects which are always hottopics in MMOs.
Asking for seperation of game modes skill wise would make more sense (assuming you are refering to pve balance coming from pvp changes). That’s a different topic though.
They won’t diversify WvW because they’re afraid of imbalance. They nerfed EotM and OS because they were afraid of imbalance. They nerfed dungeons because they were afraid of imbalance. They won’t diversify SPvP with new maps and game types because they’re afraid of imbalance. They’ve completely forgotten and removed underwater combat because they’re afraid of imbalance. They are terrified of making a move that will cause the slightest imbalance, and it’s frozen their development and creativity to the extreme. It’s caused stagnation, and all the fun and excitement has been removed simply because they’re terrified of imbalance.
Anet, I haven’t played GW2 in a while, but after having put almost 3k hours into it over the years I still follow it here on the forums and on Reddit. You’re losing a lot of players because of these two things.
- Prioritizing balance over fun. Fun > balance, always. I’ve seen you guys nerf things that people were having a BLAST with over and over again for years now simply because a small number of people whined that it was imbalanced (EotM, OS, Capricorn, dungeons, etc). Stop doing this.
- Catering to the hardcore crowd. What percent of your player-base raids? 10-15 percent? Yet you still pump out tons of content for them and none for your majority player-base. Stop doing this, cater to your big populations, that’s casuals, WvW, and SPvP players.
Just thought I’d let you know, since you seem intent on wrecking this great game more and more with every patch. I’ll be watching, playing other MMOs, as will many others. Hope to enjoy GW2 again some day if you guys can get it on the right path.
My thoughts exactly. We started with a some what fun game and now we have a very bland ,boring game with no variety or diversity. And way too much attention on content that most people won’t ever touch.
Anet, I haven’t played GW2 in a while, but after having put almost 3k hours into it over the years I still follow it here on the forums and on Reddit. You’re losing a lot of players because of these two things.
- Prioritizing balance over fun. Fun > balance, always. I’ve seen you guys nerf things that people were having a BLAST with over and over again for years now simply because a small number of people whined that it was imbalanced (EotM, OS, Capricorn, dungeons, etc). Stop doing this.
- Catering to the hardcore crowd. What percent of your player-base raids? 10-15 percent? Yet you still pump out tons of content for them and none for your majority player-base. Stop doing this, cater to your big populations, that’s casuals, WvW, and SPvP players.
Just thought I’d let you know, since you seem intent on wrecking this great game more and more with every patch. I’ll be watching, playing other MMOs, as will many others. Hope to enjoy GW2 again some day if you guys can get it on the right path.
Just thought I’d let you know balance is always more important than your “fun”. Because balance is what keeps the game fun in the long run.
Remember how fun those OP classes felt in PvP when they stomped you? That’s why we need balance.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
They won’t diversify WvW because they’re afraid of imbalance.
They just did a huge rollback to the old wvw maps since the new ones which took tons of time to create were not accepted by the community. I’m not going to aruge against wvw being neglected, but I’m not sure this is due to balance concerns.
They nerfed EotM and OS because they were afraid of imbalance.
EotM was nothing more than a circle farm map 1 week after it got released. Any changes to the map were affects from changes to general wvw. Again, this has more to do with wvw neglect than balance.
They nerfed dungeons because they were afraid of imbalance.
and those were buffed back up again. Not that I agree with the decision to increase gold gain and inflation but this has been remedied. Not going to get into the necessity for balance in an economic construct like the GW2 economy since that is to vast, but here fun definately does not beat out balance. If balance gets out of hand, short term fun will soon give way to longterm dissatisfaction.
They won’t diversify SPvP with new maps and game types because they’re afraid of imbalance.
Sronghold was released 1 year ago shortly before the entire focus shifted on the HoT expansion. Going by the timeframe it took them to add that we can assume it takes a while to design, test and implement new maps. I agree this could be more of a priority for the spvp crowd, again not a balance issue.
They’ve completely forgotten and removed underwater combat because they’re afraid of imbalance.
They removed underwater combat because it’s kitten in the eyes of most players. Has nothing to do with balance.
They are terrified of making a move that will cause the slightest imbalance, and it’s frozen their development and creativity to the extreme. It’s caused stagnation, and all the fun and excitement has been removed simply because they’re terrified of imbalance.
Coming 6 months after the release of the first expansion which took a long time to fix. Plus a major patch and change to all zones in April which many consider a huge improvement fun wise, I respectfully disagree.
You can’t pick random things that bug you, slap balance and fun behind them and consider them arguments.
(edited by Cyninja.2954)
Just thought I’d let you know balance is always more important than your “fun”. Because balance is what keeps the game fun in the long run.
Exactly this. The reason you balance a game is to make sure it remains fun in the long run.
Even looking at non-class stuff like, say, drop rates – if drop rates are too low, the game feels unrewarding because you aren’t getting anything. At the same time, if drop rates are too high, the game also feels unrewarding – items given by the backpack-load are vendor trash that no one cares about. It’s that precarious point in between – where the carrot is within reach but not just handed to you – that the game needs to achieve to be successful in the long run.
Mistakes in drop tables or overly-rewarding events are fun in the short run, precisely because they are only temporary – it feels like cheating to get ahead, and that’s one of the most powerful motivators people have. If it doesn’t go away then, it ceases to feel that way and instead starts to feel like a chore, while everything else in game feels like a waste of time as the farm spot starts to feel like the baseline, expected level of loot.
Power levels? Characters that are too weak are frustrating, too powerful is boring. God mode in shooters is most fun when the player is frustrated by difficult content and they get to just roll over everything in a rampage, but players essentially never play that way long-term – on its own, permanent god mode is a boring game that lacks challenge or engagement. Again, the balancing point between too easy and too hard is crucial to the fun of the game.
They can’t just keep buffing things continuously without making the game really trivial and boring fast. Yes, sometimes you end up on the slow and tedious and frustrating side of things – and seeing power levels go down is frustrating when you have been fighting to get an edge. That’s the sort of thing that’s needed to maintain proper difficulty, rewards, and options in the long run, which is crucial to maintaining a fun game.
Raiding isn’t hardcore. Raiding is the most casual form of content. The problem is the requirements the players themselves create in order for you to join raids. Example: 50+ legendary insights to join a raid? No, that’s not ok.
Caterting to hardcore crowd ? Are you really serious here? Do we play the same game ? We get 1 hard piece(not really that hard, some people scream hard just becouse its called raid) of content after 4 years and you call this catering to hardcore crowd? What about whole april patch that made HoT much more casual?
Also your “catering to hardcore crowd” was done by very small team (7 people I belive), much more dev power was focused on making HoT more friendly for casual players and much more devs are working on new content, including expansion#2.
(edited by Critical Lag.9075)
As a pretty casual player, I have to say that this game most certainly does not cater to the hardcore crowd. The bulk of the content we’ve received since launch has been pretty casual.
The game caters to all crowds. It has to in order to keep a larger player base.
And, that means that content is going to get released or worked on that doesn’t interest people… this feeds the false perception that ANet doesn’t care about X, where X is what you care about. The truth is ANet cares about interests A-X, and due to budget, staffing, and programming limitations it does the best it can while never satisfying everyone completely. By those circumstances they also aren’t going to release stuff for A-X at an equal rate.
Also, ANet isn’t completely responsible for the fun you find in the game. The player is, too. This isn’t a movie where you sit back and do nothing…. this isn’t WoW where you sit back and do nothing… you must actively engage yourself (read: participate) in content. Casual doesn’t mean not engaged; if someone thinks so, then this isn’t a game for them.
Finally, I think players put too much importance on balance…. or more accurately, on imbalance. For every thread someone posts about how Y profession/build is dominating, there’s another about how Z profession/build gets around it. Also, every profession sub-forum has posts about how all the others are better than them…. that indicates to me that there is balance. 1 profession vs the other 5 should feel like you’re losing more than winning: whether it’s direct conflict in PvP/WvW, or you’re just comparing PvE effectiveness.
~EW
(edited by EphemeralWallaby.7643)
cater to your big populations, that’s casuals, WvW, and SPvP players.
And where do you have the statistics that these form the big populations?
You must also not have read the dev message that a higher percentage of players do Raids in GW2 compared to any other MMO with Raids. I don’t have a link ready at the moment, but if you look for it, you’ll find it. The Raid has been very successful, especially when you take into account the team that makes it consists only of 5 or 6 people out of more than a hundred in total.
ANet changed their update model. The big content updates will be centered around the Quarterly updates. They’re already building up to LS3 with the Current Events releases, incorporating story aspects that were previously only experienced in Raids, so the more casual players can get into that part of the story too (for clarification, the aspect I’m talking about is the White Mantle).
ANet needs to cater to their entire playerbase. And considering there hasn’t been any actually hardcore content in the game since Raids and the latest Fractals overhaul, I say casuals have been catered to most of all since launch. Now that there’s a short dryspell in that regard people start complaining. This game has multiple aspects. The less aspects you focus on, the higher the chance that you’ll feel your preferred game aspects are ignored. MMO’s are games you have to view in the long term. ANet wants to focus on quality over quantity. Whether they’re succeeding at that is another discussion, but before HoT they wanted to do everything all at once, and that clearly didn’t work out so well.
What does 3,000 hours really mean though? There are players with over 10,000 hours still playing the game. They’re not losing those by a long shot.
Blood & Merlot [Wine]
What does 3,000 hours really mean though? There are players with over 10,000 hours still playing the game. They’re not losing those by a long shot.
It’s just a variation of the “appeal to authority” logical fallacy known as “appeal to accomplishment.”
~EW
It’s just a variation of the “appeal to authority” logical fallacy known as “appeal to accomplishment.”
People aren’t content to say, “I don’t like [this]” — instead, there’s a human need to justify that dislike in terms of some sort of “ideal game” or logical argument. However, “preferences” aren’t logical and mileage varies. So we end up with threads arguing about the terms used by the OP, instead of whatever it is that is bothering the poster.
In this case, what I read is:
- OP hasn’t played in a while
- OP doesn’t have as much fun as they used to
- OP attributes this to some sort of irrational focus by ANet on balancing for no good reason.
I’d thus be more sympathetic if the OP dropped this thread and started a new one that said something like, “I’m not having as much fun as I used to —- here are the things I found enjoyable that aren’t available any longer. Does anyone thing the game will have more of it down the road?”
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
What does 3,000 hours really mean though? There are players with over 10,000 hours still playing the game. They’re not losing those by a long shot.
It’s just a variation of the “appeal to authority” logical fallacy known as “appeal to accomplishment.”
~EW
Did you just quote yourself? Lol, you must have a lot of friends.
From what I’ve seen he always ends posts with his user-initials, that isn’t quoting himself.
>majority of customerbase
>spvp and wvw
sure thing lmao
Besides, I’d like to point out once again that a separate team of roughly what, 6-10 people worked on raids. They were especially hired for this iirc and don’t really work on other projects. Also, raids were pretty much finished on HoT (or at the very least Spirit Vale release), they simply decided to release them slowly over the course of 8 months instead of going with a release alongside with HoT/in one go, likely to not just throw “OH HEY LOOK WHITE MANTLE, NOW WAIT 10 MONTHS” at us. That other releases are slow doesn’t have anything to do with the raid-team, really. Besides that WvW-players have gotten quite a bit of love recently, didn’t they?
Actually Novaan, I think they said that raids werent entirely done by ship date, so they released wing 1 with or just after HoT released. Wing 2 and 3 were going to be released at the next major update after they were finished.
Actually Novaan, I think they said that raids werent entirely done by ship date, so they released wing 1 with or just after HoT released. Wing 2 and 3 were going to be released at the next major update after they were finished.
Yeah, it’s not like I mind them spreading it out that much; having to learn 9 raid encounters in one go seems like a very draining task to be fair, the pacing was fine.
Doesn’t change the fact they were done with everything for the most part, though and just fine-tuned everything over time.
Anet, I haven’t played GW2 in a while, but after having put almost 3k hours into it over the years I still follow it here on the forums and on Reddit. You’re losing a lot of players because of these two things.
- Prioritizing balance over fun. Fun > balance, always. I’ve seen you guys nerf things that people were having a BLAST with over and over again for years now simply because a small number of people whined that it was imbalanced (EotM, OS, Capricorn, dungeons, etc). Stop doing this.
- Catering to the hardcore crowd. What percent of your player-base raids? 10-15 percent? Yet you still pump out tons of content for them and none for your majority player-base. Stop doing this, cater to your big populations, that’s casuals, WvW, and SPvP players.
Just thought I’d let you know, since you seem intent on wrecking this great game more and more with every patch. I’ll be watching, playing other MMOs, as will many others. Hope to enjoy GW2 again some day if you guys can get it on the right path.
Number 1 shouldn’t be a problem. Having some things being distinctly OP or weak is definitively bad. Consider all the mesmers and rangers who got kicked from LFG/dungeons before HoT. Their definition of fun is playing the class. The classes were (and still are) poorly-balanced and thus they were not invited to do fun content. Often times, balance = fun, as imbalance impedes it tremendously.
The problem is ANet is straight-up awful at class balance and design. Balance by nature within some set of tolerances is subjective and varies at certain levels of play. The fact that there are mathematically overpowered/underpowered builds/gear options/etc. by massive margins and simply flawed designs suggests a lack of competence.
Balance is also often easier to do than making new content. It takes a lot less effort to tweak some numbers in a game engine and recompile some scripts than it does to make new assets/scripts/animations/textures and the likes.
Formal Thief Elite Spec proposal:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/ES-Suggestion-The-Deadeye-FORMAL/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/ES-Suggestion-The-Deadeye-FORMAL/
imbalance is only fun for the professions / WvW team that is constantly winning. they should; however, stop catering only to hard core players. I think the idea is that hardcore players get bored faster (since the are constantly at the end of the rope), but I wouldn’t mind simple things like ascended gear and AR being more accessible so that casuals can start doing more end game content. i’m beating a dead horse, but I also wouldn’t mind simple stat selection in WvW or PvE (ascended gear) as well
It’s just a variation of the “appeal to authority” logical fallacy known as “appeal to accomplishment.”
People aren’t content to say, “I don’t like [this]” — instead, there’s a human need to justify that dislike in terms of some sort of “ideal game” or logical argument. However, “preferences” aren’t logical and mileage varies. So we end up with threads arguing about the terms used by the OP, instead of whatever it is that is bothering the poster.
In this case, what I read is:
- OP hasn’t played in a while
- OP doesn’t have as much fun as they used to
- OP attributes this to some sort of irrational focus by ANet on balancing for no good reason.
I’d thus be more sympathetic if the OP dropped this thread and started a new one that said something like, “I’m not having as much fun as I used to —- here are the things I found enjoyable that aren’t available any longer. Does anyone thing the game will have more of it down the road?”
slam bam thank you man
they should; however, stop catering only to hard core players.
This only holds water if ALL they worked on, in the entirety of their staffing, was raids. They dont. The last quarterly update should have told you that.