Guild Wars 2

Every game ever created have had to deal with this issue, however, MMO’s and PvP games suffer the most from it.

Single player games give players the option of choosing a difficulty, which we all know to be “Easy, Normal or Hard” in terms of naming them.
- MMO’s and PvP games, however, have it a bit harder.

Perfectly balancing a game is possible, but making it seem perfectly balanced is impossible… wait, what?!?
- Well, lets take two players. Both play a warrior, they both have the same stats and the same builds, but despite this fact, one of these player annihilates the other.
Player one takes the victory at every turn against player two, and player two will say “Hey, this isn’t fair, something is unbalanced, I need to be made stronger.” but when he is made stronger, so too is player one.

Already now I figure you guys know what I’m getting at.
- Players’ skill levels is something that the devs will never be able to balance. It is impossible. A perfectly balanced game should end in a draw, but players’ skill levels ensures that it doesn’t.

So how do we balance:

Skills
- In terms of balancing skills for different skill levels, one option the devs can choose is to make certain skills “noob-friendly”.
What does that mean, exactly? Well, the skill is designed to be just a bit stronger than average, and it doesn’t require the player to stand in a particular spot and time it just right to be able to execute it. The tactic is simple.
- But won’t this create an imbalance in the game? And both yes and no. The noob friendly skills are supposed to seem overpowering, but when getting further into the game, players should realize that the skill can be countered and that it isn’t a sustainable tactic in the long run, thus leading to players experimenting with new skills and tactics.
- When done correctly, the players feel like they reach a new skill level (which they actually do) and get better as they progress through the game.

- That is one way of doing it, not necessarily the right one, but it gives players a sense of progression.

The next part here is not something you need necessarily read, but I thought I’d cover it, since I find it a major issue to the development of GW2.

Content
- When it comes to balancing content, there is no pleasing everybody.
Already now people are complaining about Liadri being too hard, even though there are players who have already defeated her.
- The mindset of MMO’s today is that everybody has to be able to defeat every boss, every dungeon and do all the content, but most believe that it should just come their way without them having to work with their skills and get better at the game.

The only way to deal with this issue is to make enough content for everybody, casuals and hardcore alike.
- People say that raids are bad and that all players who wants raids should go f*** themselves and play WoW. That is the attitude I hear on the GW2 forums (and I hope to say that we are better than that, people).
I hear people say “In GW2 you can play the way you want, but if you use these skills or this weapon you’re a noob, and if you want to play raids you should go play WoW.”
- Talk about hypocrisy. You can play the way you want to, as long as your playstyle doesn’t involve hardcore content like raids..? Oh, and if you use these skills (that might otherwise be fun to use but not the most effcient) then you’re doing it wrong?
- Personally, I’m not the most efficient player, but I am having a lot of fun playing my way (Note: I know that not everybody are saying the above stated, but I’ve heard it enough times to find it annoying).

- When I think back on Vanilla WoW, all the content in between low and max level mattered. It wasn’t about reaching max level and getting the best gear. I loved the whole world and enjoyed every second played in the game.
- When reaching level cap there were dungeons and dungeon sets to get for the more casual players, while the more hardcore players went for raids and raid sets.
I didn’t mind that raids were beyond my skill level. I didn’t mind that hardcore players had a good time, because I was not required to raid to have a good time. There was plenty of other stuff to do as well.

- GW2 is a game that has a lot of potential. The manifesto stated that A-Net wanted to make GW2 into the best MMO on the market, but listening to players who believe that they are entitled to all content, while not working to get to the skill level is just stupid.
- I’ll agree that WoW’s gameplay seems outdated compared to what is possible today, but the content available to different kind of players is a far more sensible game design (and yes, I am well aware that WoW became noob friendly, and yes, I too believe it has fallen from grace. It is no longer a game that I want to pay for playing, but thinking of how it provided content for the casuals, RP’ers and hardcore players alike back in Vanilla and TBC is probably what made it so popular).

- Single player games also often provides extra bosses that will really test the players’ skill level and see if they’ve learned anything at all. So too should MMO’s, without caring whether or not players, who are unwilling to better themselves, can do the content or not. There should be enough content for them to satisfy their needs anyhow.

Silly goose this is gw2 there aint no balance here.

MMOs have a hard time balancing things per definition and there are reasons for that. I do get that differences in player skill levels can be perceived as the game being imbalanced. That’s something that cannot be and should not be changed.

But people can always pull the imba card as long as the controllable aspects of a game are not where they should be.

The following items are notorious issues in balance:

1) Character classes
2) Gear
3) PvP stats
4) Stealth
5) CC
6) PvE vs PvP

A lot of issues come from how it is implemented as well as just being plain difficult.

So how are these points balance issues?

1) Classes are supposed to be different. That gives them flavour and a reason for being. So differences start to occur that are based on these differences. Examples? Armour is light, medium or heavy. Different weapon choices, different skill sets etc.

2) Gear exists in different grades. So a person in green gear has a problem vs someone in gold gear. But it goes deeper. We have stats that are more useful than others. It gets kind of weird when something like berserker in this game is the king of all and someone chooses another type because it fits his/her character.

3) Some games have pvp stats and even tiers. This is an obvious imbalance but it is also on purpose. Not so much an issue here in this game.

4) Stealth. Ok, there is an issue in my view when people can use stealth in a way that people cannot defend against it. Being able to use stealth constantly and also during combat makes combat unequal. Also if someone can come out of stealth and kill you outright with you barely being able to cast your fist spell is not balanced combat.

5) CC. Who has played MMOs and never heard of stunlock? Especially in Aion where there were classes that could use stealth and stunlock there was just no defence, no actual combat. Not balanced at all.

6) PvE vs PvP. MMOs tend to have both and MMO makers tend to want people to have the same skill sets for both types of gameplay. However since PvP and PvE are completely different this is bound to fail.

These are 6 reasons that cause imbalances in MMOs specifically. Not all apply to GW2 but a lot of them do.

My view though is that a degree of imbalance is actually intentional in MMOs.

It’s not that players should kitten off if they want raiding, it’s that GW2 isn’t that game. Sure, you could make the argument that it should be added since GW2 is an MMO, but you don’t see anyone saying Gran Turismo should have banana peels and blue shells because it’s a racing game.

I will say that it’s clear to me at least, that player abilities are scaled with the idea that they’re fighting against opponents of equal strength. Indeed in GW1 opponents often did operate under the same mechanics as the players did, using the same skills and etc.

I say this because in order to provide the dungeon boss fights and group events in the open world, mobs, particularly boss mobs, scale far beyond the player’s capability to deal with them, trivializing everything about the player builds except outgoing damage.

That means balanced parties in PvE don’t exist. Yes, requiring a tank and heals was detrimental to parties, but requiring all players to be glass cannons—because the difference between a glass cannon build and a pure defensive build is one extra hit from a boss—is just as bad. Balanced play in that regard becomes giving the player the choice as to what playstyle he or she is going to us, which GW2’s PvE doesn’t really allow for right now.

PvP balance there’s no point in speaking of because it’s not objective. PvP balance is cyclic and unending, not to counter only what is too strong or weak, but oftentimes also to counter what is too easy, too hard, too popular, or too unpopular. Changes will be made, and if no one is ever happy then everyone is on roughly equal footing.

OP’s first analogy was just really bad and incomplete. I demand a better one :p

There are very big balance disparities in this game. It’s nothing at all like DAoC / WH / or even Gw1 where eventually, real skill or atleast “Optimal Rotation” builds actually did overcome the majority of imbalances in the obsessive areas of Undue Efficacy Importance. (gvg HA speedclears etc)

When it comes to raids, it honestly doesn’t matter though. World Boss Events are all the proof you’ll ever need of that b/c time and again, Anet proves the area they have the hardest times balancing are Raid rewards and since we’ve already got a better thread about that, it doesn’t need to be argued here.