Guild Wars 2

Per title: why don’t the devs ever change a skill functionally? Like, really, redesigning it? We’ve seen a couple of redesigned skills, but there are some skills which are plain terrible like ele fire scepter auto-attack, and will never make into a decent build, and yet there it is. Is this something really that difficult to balance or they just don’t want to have people readapt to the new mechanically changed skill?

The reason changes depending on the state of the Dev team. For the first year, it was claimed it would require too much work, and believed most skills served the right function, but could be fixed by changing its stats. By year 2, they said they didn’t have anyone on-staff who could change the skill mechanics because of how their engine was designed…. and they couldn’t find anyone qualified to make the necessary changes- This would force them to remake the skill set from scratch, and it was too high effort. (This was the one I’ve seen cited as to why Ranger Sword AA “Leap” couldn’t be changed so it doesn’t root the player on execution)

With HOT, the engine was overhauled to do all these things…. But the lead designers for some of the classes cough cough Ranger refuse to accept that the functionality of some skills are either not competitive, or even counter productive to how combat works in this game.

As for the Ele Scepter, the mechanics of the attacks aren’t so much the problem as their overall damage output. Air AA is actually really powerful, because its a multi-hit, zero-travel channel that still allows Instant cast skills to function while in use…. in fact, its even paired with 2 skills have instant cast on slots 2 and 3. Fire AA is a steady source of burning, Water AA is multiple projectiles (which can trigger and expend defense traits on the first hit, leaving them open for the 2 other hits), Earth AA being similar despite being on a short channel. The truth is all the skills on Ele scepter are actually good to excellent delivery mechanisms; but the one thing they all have in common is lack luster damage coefficients that don’t reflect the high risk of channeled skills. The only skill that ever had any real big issues was Dragon Tooth; and that one was recently changed to ground targeting so you could aim ahead of a target.

Because I don’t think the profession team pays enough attention to the under-used or under-powered skills and abilities in the game to even know what to change them to.

CJ sometime in 2013 said they always look for “low-hanging fruit” fixes first for all things related to balance. That philosophy is a major flaw in the team’s dynamic that I don’t think has ever changed.

During the ranger CDI, all complaints about pets and asking for pet-less builds was dismissed by the team as “not aligning with ANet’s vision” despite being the single-most requested change since the start of the game for the profession and one of the most requested changes of all time overall for all of the professions.

I also don’t think the profession team communicates with the other teams aside from the PvE one to discern what is and isn’t good design or what does or doesn’t need to change. Especially with HoT and thereafter, most things pertinent to profession design have had zero interaction with the competitive-format players or any amount of respect for what people want from combat, have had only numbers changes, have had next to zero contextual justification, and have only changed dynamics in PvE speed-clear groups due to their lack of substance.

There have been necessary skill and trait design changes since day 1 for pretty every profession and they have been complained about since day 2. We’ve seen no willingness to go there so far; not much reason to suspect they will be in the future.

I would guess the PvP balance team compares the best builds in each profession, popularity of that profession, and win-loss rates rather than spend too much time on sub-optimal builds. A top-down balance, if you will.

The PvE team probably examines team utility.

My guess is that;

1. Animations are probably done using and old, expensive mocap system,
2. The developers don’t feel fully in control of their skill system and don’t like to touch it once it’s implemented,
3. The guy who made/maintained the system went to another company.

DeceiverX.8361:

Because I don’t think the profession team pays enough attention to the under-used or under-powered skills and abilities in the game to even know what to change them to.

CJ sometime in 2013 said they always look for “low-hanging fruit” fixes first for all things related to balance. That philosophy is a major flaw in the team’s dynamic that I don’t think has ever changed.

During the ranger CDI, all complaints about pets and asking for pet-less builds was dismissed by the team as “not aligning with ANet’s vision” despite being the single-most requested change since the start of the game for the profession and one of the most requested changes of all time overall for all of the professions.

I also don’t think the profession team communicates with the other teams aside from the PvE one to discern what is and isn’t good design or what does or doesn’t need to change. Especially with HoT and thereafter, most things pertinent to profession design have had zero interaction with the competitive-format players or any amount of respect for what people want from combat, have had only numbers changes, have had next to zero contextual justification, and have only changed dynamics in PvE speed-clear groups due to their lack of substance.

There have been necessary skill and trait design changes since day 1 for pretty every profession and they have been complained about since day 2. We’ve seen no willingness to go there so far; not much reason to suspect they will be in the future.

that would make a ranger into a warrior.

The old problem was that a ranger was basically a warrior with a pet. I do not know enough about druid to comment.

loseridoit.2756:

DeceiverX.8361:

Because I don’t think the profession team pays enough attention to the under-used or under-powered skills and abilities in the game to even know what to change them to.

CJ sometime in 2013 said they always look for “low-hanging fruit” fixes first for all things related to balance. That philosophy is a major flaw in the team’s dynamic that I don’t think has ever changed.

During the ranger CDI, all complaints about pets and asking for pet-less builds was dismissed by the team as “not aligning with ANet’s vision” despite being the single-most requested change since the start of the game for the profession and one of the most requested changes of all time overall for all of the professions.

I also don’t think the profession team communicates with the other teams aside from the PvE one to discern what is and isn’t good design or what does or doesn’t need to change. Especially with HoT and thereafter, most things pertinent to profession design have had zero interaction with the competitive-format players or any amount of respect for what people want from combat, have had only numbers changes, have had next to zero contextual justification, and have only changed dynamics in PvE speed-clear groups due to their lack of substance.

There have been necessary skill and trait design changes since day 1 for pretty every profession and they have been complained about since day 2. We’ve seen no willingness to go there so far; not much reason to suspect they will be in the future.

that would make a ranger into a warrior.

The old problem was that a ranger was basically a warrior with a pet. I do not know enough about druid to comment.

Not really, especially at the time when RF had double the cast time, longbow autos had a 100% miss chance against skilled opponents, the traits were terrible, etc., and there wasn’t such thing as gunflame berserker for a true ranged profession. A change in profession mechanics could easily allow the ranger a unique martial platform. Many people proposed preparations from GW1, as an example.