Guild Wars 2

I think we all have a general idea of what “balanced” means, but to what extent are we looking? What is a good, but possible-to-attain definition of balance? What is the state the game should be in for ANet and players to say, “Ah, yeah. This is good, everything is pretty well balanced.” I’ll start with some (I think) reasonable assumptions:

(When I say “build/s”, I mean a combination of equipment, skills, and traits within a specific profession. “Skill” is something like the ability to increase the effectiveness of a profession/build combination in a given situation due to coordination, speed, awareness, etc. [basically, due to factors intrinsic in the player, not the game]; also, don’t confuse the above defined skill with “skills” [i.e. – a profession’s skills]—this isn’t Napoleon Dynamite.)

First,
– Builds with high synergy amongst all their components typically do better than builds that are scattered about.

When you have a game which allows for any synergy, that means there will be a finite number of builds which generally have more synergy than others (usually the smaller number) compared to a finite number which have less synergy (usually a larger number). The more synergistic builds are, the more effective they are within any given profession.

- This means that some builds will be more useful than other builds within a given profession.

Similarly, when you have a game which allows for any difference in classes (in this case, professions), the only way one class can be exactly as effective as another class in a given situation is if the two classes are built exactly the same, or their skills do the same thing.

– In a given situation, one set of profession-specific skills is probably going to be more or less effective than another set.

– Over time in any game, players will find particular professions and builds that are most effective in a situation—those combinations that synergize the best with their constituent parts.

Through this, I’ve been assuming same-skilled players. That is, one build will intrinsically be more effective than another build if the same player played both. But, video games in general, especially GW2, have a skill factor. The greater a player’s skill, the more effective he/she can play. A really, really good Thief might do better in a PvE 3v1 than a really, really bad Elementalist—even though the Elementalist’s set of skills is better for that situation.

- A player’s skill has an effect on how well a particular build does in a given situation.

On that note, no matter how good a player is, there are certain things he/she won’t be able to do. If there were a profession with zero AoE capabilities, then even the best players can’t AoE things. If there were a profession that had no damage abilities and only healed, even the best players wouldn’t be able to do anything but heal.

- A player’s skill cannot supersede the boundaries of a build. Warriors will never summon multiple turrets and Engineers will never conjure self-destructable clones of themselves.

… and…

– The ease of a profession and build is determined by the minimum level of skill required to be as effective in a situation compared to another profession/build combination.

I think all these points are universally true (replace “professions” w/ “class”, etc.), and reasonably assumed. My purpose for explicitly listing them out is that a lot of conversation is hindered by people not being on the same page, and the more I think about it, the less I’m sure I know what kind of “balance” we’re all talking about here.

Define “balance” (in the context of a game’s mechanics)

First, I think the extreme: In order for a game to be completely balanced, all professions and corresponding builds must be equally effective in any given situation regardless of a player’s skill.

Ok, I don’t think anyone wants that, or thinks it’s attainable short of making every profession and build exactly the same.

In order for a game to be balanced, one profession and build combination should not be more effective in every situation than another profession and build combination, regardless of a player’s skill.

This is a little better, I think. If Profession-&-Build-A is more effective in a situation than Profession-&-Build-B, then Profession-&-Build-B should be more effective in something Profession-&-Build-A is not. Still, it’s lacking in a lot of ways. Do the developers partition a general list of situations and make a heiarchy of which P&B (Profession & Build combination) is more effective? Also, if a player’s skill isn’t involved, then what fun is it short of purely a stat-optimization game (hardly a game and more of a math problem)?

In order for a game to be balanced, the potential effectiveness of any two P&B combined with a player’s skill should be equal. That is, a game’s professions and builds would be balanced if one P&B is easy, and requires a low skill level to be effective, while another P&B is more difficult and requires a high skill level to be just as effective.

That takes into consideration player skill, which is better, but it seems contradictory to what most people intuitively consider balance (I think, though, at some point part of this definition will be a necessary evil in order to have an enjoyable game).

In order for a game to be balanced, the potential effectiveness of any P&B combined with a player’s skill should be proportional to the ease of the P&B—and the potential effectiveness of any one P&B combined with a player’s skill should not be much greater or much less than the potential effectiveness of any other P&B combined with a player’s skill.

So… if a P&B is “easy”, then its potential effectiveness will be lower than a P&B that is “difficult”. The easy P&B requires less skill to be effective. The difficult P&B requires more skill to be effective—but has the potential to be more effective. At the same time, one potential cannot be much greater than another potential.

Ultimately, I think that a good game will inevitably have a heiarchy of P&B—something will be intrinsically better than something else, and trying to standardize their effectiveness leads to dull classes and dull skills.

What do you guys think? The idea of “balance” is surprisingly vague; which one are we going for?

Some other questions to ask yourself:
- What’s the best way to gauge effectiveness? – Does it have to be guaged by individual situation or generally?
- Should we factor the frequency of particular situations? (That is, if one P&B is really, really effective at a particular situation—but that situation is fairly rare, should we lessen the weight of said P&B’s effectiveness measure?)
- Should we even be looking for a static “balance” value? Or is the best game one that is constantly changing?
- If the best game is one that’s constantly changing, it has to be changing towards a particular goal, which could be considered “balance”. What is that goal?|
- How much should meta-game and meta-game shifts be factored, if at all?

I know ANet employees seem hesitant to post in balance/mechanic discussions, but I’d really love to see ANet’s input, and what they want to achieve when employees say “balance”.

Let’s discuss balance—what does it mean?

All character classes suck equally?

No one stands out?

Everyone is generic?

So what is is it your getting at?

Do what everyone to be the same or do you want all specs to be the same?

Or are you pointing out the obvious?

Cause im trying to figure out an angle but i seriously can’t figure out what direction to go to discuss this topic.

But honestly it just seems like a clearly hidden class balance sucks Anet why can’t my warrior spam fireballs too.

I… uh…
… a… wha?

… at least you responded. ._.

I normally don’t bother posting in forums, preferring to just read, but in this case I will comment.

It is much easier to define “imbalance” than it is to define balance, so let’s go with standard hypothesis testing techniques. If it is possible to prove the counter-argument is valid — or state unequivocably that the counter-argument can’t be disproven — then it can be inferred that the hypothesis is invalid.

The hypothesis is that GW2 is “balanced”…

Let’s just look at PvE, players of whatever class versus mobs, since PvP is too greatly dependent on player skill:

1) Can a player “stun-lock” / “knockdown-lock” a mob? No. But mobs can effectively “stun-lock” / “knockdown-lock” a player between the time of the effect and the animation delay time to recover from the effect. On my five different characters (all different classes), I have had many occasions where I’ve lost 3/4 of the health bar to mobs with the ability to stun or knockdown the player — before I could ever react.

2) Can a player cause a mob to lose its targeting of the player to interrupt the skill being fired? Not really, although a player can run away, attempt to dodge (if there is a visual cue for a player to react to), or possibly “break lock” with stealth or some other skill… although the mob then just resumes targeting 99% (wild exaggeration) of the time. Yet, there are lots of different mobs that continually break targeting, making it impossible for player’s characters to fire their skills. Just this morning, while trying to reach a skill challenge, my Mesmer had to cross an area where two skelks were hidden (“invisible”, meaning they only spawned once you entered the area). They phased in and out SO FAST that it was impossible to target them (either TAB-targeting or mouse click) and fire off a skill. They were eighteen (18) levels lower than my Mesmer… yet they killed her five times before I could get past that point on the terrain. I couldn’t even use my “on-death” skills because they required being able to target an opponent… and I couldn’t target one long enough to effectively use the skills.

3) Do players “respawn” so fast — contrary to the BS we’re being fed about respawn timers — that it is impossible for mobs to advance on terrain, trying to reach some vantage point, before the players that were just killed come back to life and attack them from behind? No. Players have to respawn at some waypoint usually quite some distance away from the terrain that is being fought over; they don’t get to respawn right on top of their opponent and it takes time for them to return to the fight.

4) Are players on some magic leash that if exceeded when fighting a mob causes the player’s health to regenerate very quickly and, more often than not, makes the player go invulnerable? No. But the current “leash mechanics” cause some absolutely ridiculous situations in the game where it is impossible for classes — the glass cannons and even the leather armor wearers — to fight effectively because the developers evidently expect the players to go toe-to-toe with the mobs.

Enough of that…

On the one hand, it’s nice to play a game where it’s not possible for players to just walk over the mobs. However, it’s not because the mobs’ AI is so marvelous. It’s because the game has some decidedly artificial mechanics built in that heavily favor the mobs.

Unfortunately, these artificialities are blatantly obvious in the game and make gameplay — even in PvE — imbalanced… and, quite frankly, tedious.

I believe there is a decent balance between classes; of the five I play, they all suffer pretty much the same way in the same circumstances. But, there is a very poor balance between players and the game environment…

…and it seriously hurts enjoyment of the game.