Guild Wars 2

I’ve played well over 10 different MMOs (ffxi, and ffxiv being my favourite), including hello kitty online where I was a moderator, and out of all of them, this one seems to have the least balance.

What I mean by this, is that everything in the game seems to be skewed so that one group of people do better than others.

For example:

This recent Karka Event >
Some of my friends managed to open two or three boxes -during- the event, and still got a box in the mail.
I on the other hand being in an overflow server and finishing later than others, only got to open one, and received no box in the mail.
Others lagged out and received one box in the mail.
Here, some people get 3-4 boxes, others get 2, others get 1.
Since these boxes all have a chance of giving a precursor which is worth a weeks+ worth of farming in most cases, this seems pretty unbalanced.

Jormag (and probably other farming) >
While I think the chest system at the end of the event is very fair, I notice that some people are able to make 5-9 gold per run, whereas the most I have ever made (as a lvl 80 ele with power/mf gear, omnom berries, guild buffs, banner buffs, etc) was probably 4 or 5g. And this was -very- rare. I noticed a divide with people farming, where some normally get a few g a run (or no g) and others get quite a bit every run.
From what I have gathered, some people are able to farm the event -very- efficiently, while others are unable to do the same. My assumption is this has something to do with jobs and their aoe abilities. For example I see that warriors (even in full MF gear) tend to do quite well. When some individuals are able to get 3+ lodestones a run, and I see maybe 1 lodestone every 3 or 4 runs (with the occasional run getting me 2 max), it tells me there is something really unbalanced going on.

Gold >
This game seems to rely heavily on gold to be an “elite” player. WvW siege equip can cost a lot, legendary weapons cost quite a bit, etc.
Now i’m all for this and think this is a great system
Except that I’ve spoken to multiple people off the game who have legendaries, and realized that they got the majority of the gold for it either from an exploit, or from buying gold from gil sellers at less than one third the cost of the current currency exchange system in game.
Now there are economic ways to fix this, such as making precursors available for purchase with crystals for 10,000 gems. If this was done, then there would be an increase in demand for gems, driving up the gem exchange to a more at-level position with RMT prices. Now as an economist i realize how simplistic that sounds. The reality would be a bit more complex and require some research and maybe a test. But the point is it could be done.
However, instead, the majority or the legendary quest is focused on gold, which to be completely fair, quite a lot of people purchase from RMTs (and don’t seem to get banned for it, which would be an acceptable alternative).
Again, this could have been easily fixed by requiring lvl 400 items that could not be sold rather than ones that can be sold (meaning people would have to manually farm them)

Jobs >
I don’t think I need to go into much detail here. If you go to various forums you will see many topics complaining about job imbalances. For example mesmers in pvp or wvw, and their ability to portal people into a fort.

I could go on, but the main point is that this game seems to favour certain groups over others, rather than be a product of the time you invest, and money you spend -supporting- the game.

So i’m just wondering (as I’ve never played GW), if these imbalances are just generally something that goes along with GW/2’s system of profits, or if it’s just a result of it being a somewhat new game. The reason I ask is because as much as I enjoy the game, I don’t necessarily want to invest huge amounts of time on a game where my success depends more on luck (which could change with any patch) than it does on playtime or skill. (ex. I don’t want to spend a month farming for a legendary or spend $800 in the game whereas someone else spends $200 on an RMT site. And I refuse to support RMT for obvious ethical reasons)

I would like to say that I realize this occurs in almost all MMOs, but from my experience and 10+ years of playing online games, this seems to have the most imbalance (and I’m sure that is debatable)

Thank you in advance for any answers.

I was reading this and nodding until I saw that you are just another chump who can’t handle portal and wants mesmers nerfed into oblivion.

Oh personally I’m fine with mesmers using portal. I actually think it’s pretty cool. It’s just that it would make a lot more sense to give each job something special or useful in each situation. Most other games have this build in as they don’t have dynamic classes. FFXI did an -amazing- job at this, where each job had really unique abilities that set them apart.

But here I feel like some jobs are -extra- good at certain things, whereas others are just terrible. For example I feel kinda imbalanced in PVE as an elementalist, as other jobs can do a lot more dmg than i can, even if i max my power and never miss, while taking considerably more hits than me.

I don’t believe in nerfs or making one job better than the other. I believe in balancing jobs out so they all feel special to play and all have some sort of competitive advantage in some sort of situation. As opposed to having 2 or 3 really good jobs and a lot of meh jobs.

Lol why mention HKO?

Like that gives you any kind of credibility. Just wondering tbh.

I’d rather miss events then have none at all.

wow! You see lodestones drop? I myself have never ever ever EVER seen a Charged lodestone drop for me EVER, and I have farmed the sparks, I have done Coe xplor many times, and never ever Charged lodestones. only once did I get a charged core.

And I have 120% magic find, I dont know how people can reach 250%

@HKO comment, HKO was a really fun and -really- well done mmo at the time when I was playing/volunteering. However the company was licensing the game and due to changes from what im guessing is sanrio, they messed it up. It was essentially a beta, and because of all the issues (with the head programmers) I think the company dropped it and never launched it officially.

@ lodestones, I’m talking corrupted lodestones which are 1.3ish gold each.
My friends who farm jorm (as war?) often get 2-3 lodestones plus 1-2 exotics per run
I’m lucky if I land 1 lodestone, and I go crazy with spells, cycling through every staff aoe I have on a power build.
The problem seems to be that war’s have a lot more dmg as meelee and within seconds, kill many of the mobs that drop things. By the time my spells do their aoe damage (which is generally dot), they are dead.

@ rather miss events
And my argument isn’t not (sry for double negative) to have events. It’s to have safeguards in the events to stop people from exploiting (opening multiple chests) or “scripts” that unfairly determine who gets a box after.
This could be easily accomplished with a few lines of programming.
Ex. openkarkabox = false
you open the karka box
openkarkabox = true

This way you couldn’t open the box on all your chars
And they could just mail a box to -everyone- with a bonus item inside (like turns you into a karka for 30min) if you have already opened one.

(i program too btw, and have programmed for online games)

The main point is that simple things which other games almost never have issues with, seem to be serious issues here. And by all the posts on this forum, I think it’s safe to say I’m not imagining stuff.

I just still want to know if this is -normal- for Anet as i never played GW1. was GW1 this bad? Or was it bad at the start and got better?

RNG is RNG. There’s no point in complaining about it.

Also while I think they should have limited the chest to 1 per account, you can’t complain if someone decides to spend another 3 hours doing the karka event for the chest. He invested for extra reward. You had the option but didn’t.

A week’s worth of farming? Try three months for those of us who have responsibilities outside the game and don’t want to waste what little time we have tag-spamming an endless circle of Orr events.

RNG implies equal randomness across all players.
The RNG is not the problem
I’m assuming the system of tagging is the problem
If a warrior can hit considerably more mobs per round in jorm farming than an ele or ranger can, that warrior has triple the chances to obtain items

And no one spent another 3 hours doing the karka chest as they all occured around the same time? Most finished one, joined a nearly finished one in overflow, finished that one, etc. Karka event was 1-time and form what i gathered nearly all of them ended at the same time. Also I assumed opening a second chest that way would be an exploit as it was a -1 time event- which essentially screams “you get 1 chest”

Azurymber.5193:

Oh personally I’m fine with mesmers using portal. I actually think it’s pretty cool. It’s just that it would make a lot more sense to give each job something special or useful in each situation. Most other games have this build in as they don’t have dynamic classes. FFXI did an -amazing- job at this, where each job had really unique abilities that set them apart.

But here I feel like some jobs are -extra- good at certain things, whereas others are just terrible. For example I feel kinda imbalanced in PVE as an elementalist, as other jobs can do a lot more dmg than i can, even if i max my power and never miss, while taking considerably more hits than me.

I don’t believe in nerfs or making one job better than the other. I believe in balancing jobs out so they all feel special to play and all have some sort of competitive advantage in some sort of situation. As opposed to having 2 or 3 really good jobs and a lot of meh jobs.

This comment here is how i feel too, certain classes have a role in GW2, other classes seem to have zero direction, its very strange.

You brought up GW1 and yes there are similarities to it and GW2 but in GW2 the classes unbalanced behavior seems to be multiplied. (i personally believe its the lacking of skills, in GW1 we had many many skills to choose from per class, in GW2 we are very limited and what we have now isn’t working on many professions).

I have made Multiple 80 professions and i agree certain classes far out do the others and something needs to be done asap, Ranger, Elementalist, Necro all need overhauls from what i’ve played of them because classes like Mesmer, Warrior, Guardian even Thief and Engineer to a point far out surpassed them.

Azurymber.5193:

RNG implies equal randomness across all players.
The RNG is not the problem
I’m assuming the system of tagging is the problem
If a warrior can hit considerably more mobs per round in jorm farming than an ele or ranger can, that warrior has triple the chances to obtain items

And no one spent another 3 hours doing the karka chest as they all occured around the same time? Most finished one, joined a nearly finished one in overflow, finished that one, etc. Karka event was 1-time and form what i gathered nearly all of them ended at the same time. Also I assumed opening a second chest that way would be an exploit as it was a -1 time event- which essentially screams “you get 1 chest”

You would be incorrect. People got multiple chest because they were able to join a “fresh” overflow that hadn’t even started the event. I highly doubt anyone did the method you’re suggesting (Going to an overflow with a nearly dead karka) as the overflow would have been full at that point.

Oh and every class has some form of AoE. Yes some are better then others at AoE but some classes are better soloers or bossers and such. It’ gives a diversity to each class while keeping a fair playing field by not excluding one class over another.

Aleaf.8174:

Azurymber.5193:

RNG implies equal randomness across all players.
The RNG is not the problem
I’m assuming the system of tagging is the problem
If a warrior can hit considerably more mobs per round in jorm farming than an ele or ranger can, that warrior has triple the chances to obtain items

And no one spent another 3 hours doing the karka chest as they all occured around the same time? Most finished one, joined a nearly finished one in overflow, finished that one, etc. Karka event was 1-time and form what i gathered nearly all of them ended at the same time. Also I assumed opening a second chest that way would be an exploit as it was a -1 time event- which essentially screams “you get 1 chest”

You would be incorrect. People got multiple chest because they were able to join a “fresh” overflow that hadn’t even started the event. I highly doubt anyone did the method you’re suggesting (Going to an overflow with a nearly dead karka) as the overflow would have been full at that point.

Oh and every class has some form of AoE. Yes some are better then others at AoE but some classes are better soloers or bossers and such. It’ gives a diversity to each class while keeping a fair playing field by not excluding one class over another.

On my server my friends jumped into my overflow after completing theres and got a second box within 10minutes.
The fact that some people did the event on another overflow for 3 hours shows that it would have been easy to prevent
And since it’s a one time event it makes sense that you get 1-reward chance. Thus risking a ban for exploiting the system by getting multiple chests (in ffxi people did something similar to this and they got mass banned/suspended for it)

In regards to AOE, explain to me any way that my ele can outpreform a War when farming jorm. 2 wars use their ability and every mob is downed. In that time i’m still casting the spell, or my spell has hit -once- for minimal damage.

Yes my ele may be slightly better against a dungeon boss with ranged and dot, but how does that make the game fair to me? If i fight said boss, the war will get to use my abilities and get the same chance at items as me. If i farm i will get 1/3rd the war does. That isn’t balance.

Am of the opposite opinion – GW2 is probably the most ‘balanced’ of any MMO I’ve played.

Mercucial.6759:

Lol why mention HKO?

Like that gives you any kind of credibility. Just wondering tbh.

The fact that HKO is balanced and GW2 isn’t. Shows GW2’s credibility.

Noobkaka.5067:

wow! You see lodestones drop? I myself have never ever ever EVER seen a Charged lodestone drop for me EVER, and I have farmed the sparks, I have done Coe xplor many times, and never ever Charged lodestones. only once did I get a charged core.

And I have 120% magic find, I dont know how people can reach 250%

Very carefully. That’s okay tho man I run with 226% most of the time and I don’t even get any to drop either.

It amazes me people think that it’s perfectly normal to spend months on a game trying to get a certain drop to occur with a mechanic that’s supposed to help this happen and have it not drop 100% of the time. That’s impossible unless A: it’s by design B: there’s something wrong. Randomness does not occur like this so to those who keep throwing the RNG argument out there please stop.

As far as the OP’s argument.

As an engineer I absolutely agree with you and here’s why.

When did it become normal to fire off 25-30 bullets at an enemy that a two handed warrior or guardian can kill in three hits?

When did it become acceptable for 30 grenades to be thrown at an enemy and NOT die (not a vet or champ mind you) and still be beating on you when one of these one shot classes run by and pwn them?

Why is it considered absolutely correct for only two classes in the game to be allowed to one shot anything or anyone?

Imbalance is not right, it shouldn’t be there and if you are giving one shot abilities to those two classes you need to spread it around.

Why is it the most militant of classes can’t one shot when we specialize in firearms, explosives, napalm, chemical weapons, and high voltage electricity????

tigirius.9014:

Why is it the most militant of classes can’t one shot when we specialize in firearms, explosives, napalm, chemical weapons, and high voltage electricity????

why would it make sense >>
A Ele raining down Meteors should one hit everything then since its a freaking meteor(wich btw can destroy Earth)
this game is not made to make sense
its to have fun, every class apart from ranger kinda is balanced

Whats a job? Just sounds silly to refer to anything in an MMO as a job.

I think you mean Profession, or traditionally “class”.

Why is it considered absolutely correct for only two classes in the game to be allowed to one shot anything or anyone?

Imbalance is not right, it shouldn’t be there and if you are giving one shot abilities to those two classes you need to spread it around.

everything a class does, another has a counter for. its like rock paper scissors.

if everything were 100% balanced no problems whatsoever, nothing would be very fun. developers who try to chase balance find themselves on a wild goose chase, especially in an MMO.

as for those classes able to one or two shot everything. guardians can take a lot of damage but tend to not dish out a lot. thieves can easily two shot you if you let them but they themselves are quite squishy. try playing one and you’ll see. its not like there is one class that is 100% invincible to everything and can one shot everything.

cesmode.4257:

Whats a job? Just sounds silly to refer to anything in an MMO as a job.

I think you mean Profession, or traditionally “class”.

It would sound silly to you, the average GW2 white knight with no experience of any other game.

In most online games, there is variation. A monks job is to heal. A mage’s job is to dps. A warriors job is to tank, there is also support, running etc.

In GW2 your job is to auto attack. And they can’t even manage to balance that.

Nayru.4537:

cesmode.4257:

Whats a job? Just sounds silly to refer to anything in an MMO as a job.

I think you mean Profession, or traditionally “class”.

It would sound silly to you, the average GW2 white knight with no experience of any other game.

In most online games, there is variation. A monks job is to heal. A mage’s job is to dps. A warriors job is to tank, there is also support, running etc.

In GW2 your job is to auto attack. And they can’t even manage to balance that.

1. Ive played about a half dozen MMOs, sir. Not new.
2. You clearly didnt research this game. Its meant not to have roles. Sorry to disappoint.

Reaver.9256:

cesmode.4257:

Nayru.4537:

cesmode.4257:

Whats a job? Just sounds silly to refer to anything in an MMO as a job.

I think you mean Profession, or traditionally “class”.

It would sound silly to you, the average GW2 white knight with no experience of any other game.

In most online games, there is variation. A monks job is to heal. A mage’s job is to dps. A warriors job is to tank, there is also support, running etc.

In GW2 your job is to auto attack. And they can’t even manage to balance that.

1. Ive played about a half dozen MMOs, sir. Not new.
2. You clearly didnt research this game. Its meant not to have roles. Sorry to disappoint.

Not even worth replying to his threads. Just read his previous posts. He’s obviously butthurt over something they did and does nothing but spread lies about the game. Not sure why he hasn’t been banned yet.

To whom are you referring?

Azurymber.5193:

I’ve played well over 10 different MMOs (ffxi, and ffxiv being my favourite), including hello kitty online

These sort of preclude the information following them to be automatically irrelevant, considering the first two are a very, very different animal than GW2, and I would have preferred living life without the knowledge that the third existed.

You can’t have opened the karka chest twice (unless you got mailed one I assume), I tried. It wouldn’t allow me to open it again. Also heard from guildies that alts weren’t able to get it either, so your friends are liars.

From what I did read, you seem to think that somebody with a little amount of time to spend on the game should be equally rewarded to those with a lot of time. That makes no sense at all. Why would those with a lot of time even play if they can get the same reward for much less effort? Yes, I get it, it was a one time event and some people are sad that they couldn’t attend, but whose fault is that? Mine? Anet’s? The karka chest was dropping all night, I know guildies that got it 9 hours later in overflows that failed to complete it. What I do not agree with is how anet handled chest drops. Giving hundreds of precursors in a one time event chest is a bad idea. Other exotics would have been acceptable and I know they wanted to allow more precursors into the game, but this wasn’t the way to handle it. I agree and enjoy one time events, but they shouldn’t have enormous impacts on the game’s economy like the karka chest did.

In regards to class imbalance: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/perfect-imbalance

infrequentia.3465:

tigirius.9014:

Why is it the most militant of classes can’t one shot when we specialize in firearms, explosives, napalm, chemical weapons, and high voltage electricity????

why would it make sense >>
A Ele raining down Meteors should one hit everything then since its a freaking meteor(wich btw can destroy Earth)
this game is not made to make sense
its to have fun, every class apart from ranger kinda is balanced

you can’t have fun if it takes 30 grenades to kill one mob or 26 bullets to kill another from a pistol. It’s not an exaggeration. Play an engineer you’ll see what I’m talking about.

And that’s not the point the point is if they are making it possible to one or two shot in one class they should do that for all classes. end of story. no more arguing, it’s done. end of line. Fair is fair and when they create an imbalance like this it might as well be Guild Warriors 2 because that’s what this game is going to turn into.

No one got more than 1 chest. I tried exactly this. I finished on the overflow server, got the chest, then went to the regular server. I was unable to open the chest. All chests are once a day.

If you want all classes to be exactly the same, then go play a single player game and not worry about it. Having different classes means some are better at some things than others. Just like in real life, people are better at different things.

Even if all precursors were set at 10,000 gems, some people will still not be able to farm enough gold, or not be able to afford to buy it with real money. Some people are just too casual or too bad at the game to ever get a legendary, and that’s just the way it is.

I’m so tired of people whining about not being fair. It is fair. Everyone payed the same amount of money for the game, and has had the exact same amount of time to play, and could pick the same class. Some people are better at the game than others, get over it. This doesn’t seem like the kind of game you enjoy.

Not bothering with a long answer to this, you answered your own question more or less when you stated “RNG is only balanced when it’s equal across all players”
Classes that can farm more efficiently are inherently going to get more rolls.
It’s not all that bad though or cause for extreme concern, but yeah the endgame doesn’t exactly consist of much outside of the epic legendary farm, thus for many that’s the endgame goal that fuels said market, thus anything that isn’t to do with them is kinda worthless, unless manipulated to be valuable and in demand