Guild Wars 2

I really just want balance, like every other player in the game. Get rid of power creep too. skills do not need to hit that hard. Above all just give us more GOSH DARN balnce patches…please.

I agree that balance patches need to be more frequent, so problems can be adressed quicker when a change has unwanted effects.

However, balance is better than it has been in ages, maybe even ever. PvP balance is in a really good place where all classes are viable and useful (no more: “oh warr or thief, please reroll”). In raids and fracs ele is no longer king of all DPS and most of the classes have their place. Necro and rev need work though. Necro has only marginal use through epidemic, and rev is pretty much only wanted at Deimos as a kiter.

I’m personally ok with the HoT powercreep. I think most people expected it and it makes sense from a marketing perspective that the elite specs would be more powerful than the core specs. The big challenge will be to make the elite specs we’ll get with the new expac on par with the HoT ones. Different but not powercreeped is what they need to aim for. If they achieve that, i think the balance team has been doing a pretty good job the last few balance patches.

I know too little of WvW to have an opinion on balance there.

I think it’s not surprising that the Elite specs are more powerful. They wouldn’t be Elite if they were as strong as vanilla specs. ANet decided that players wanted to be able to progress their chars with more than getting more skins. Most mmos use gear progression and higher char levels to do this. Anet decided to do it with Elite Specs and Mastery lines, which is leveling and getting more powerful under a different name.

The frequency of balance patches is fine. What Arenanet needs is a public test server to test them out first.

They have a tendency to overnerf and then to overbuff to compensate. Having players actually test their changes for them to collect data on would probably help them finding the sweet spot.

EDIT: Could also help them find the right changes to address balance issues without collateral damages to other builds.

The game’s PvP meta is not self-evolving. (i.e. “rock” meta would lead to “paper” meta, “paper” meta would lead to “scissors” meta, etc) So the meta is uninteresting/stale.

For PvE, the meta is fine for every except Rev. If you think necro is a problem, you either have been 1) listening to Brazil whining too much or 2) reading too much into qT’s benchmark. Most raiders wouldn’t even come close to doing qT’s benchmark damage, so it doesn’t matter. ANet could easily make necro in-demand without balance changes by designing next wing to be Adds heavy.

@Bearhugger – The balance patch frequency would be fine if we received real balance patches instead of this nonsense where each class has a few skills whose CD had a few seconds shaved off. But since that’s all we get, we really need to be having “balance” patches monthly at least, if not biweekly.

OriOri.8724:

@Bearhugger – The balance patch frequency would be fine if we received real balance patches instead of this nonsense where each class has a few skills whose CD had a few seconds shaved off. But since that’s all we get, we really need to be having “balance” patches monthly at least, if not biweekly.

ehh the last balance patch made so many more classes viable but ye… nonsense

Alec B.8905:

I really just want balance, like every other player in the game. Get rid of power creep too. skills do not need to hit that hard. Above all just give us more GOSH DARN balnce patches…please.

You will get much, much better responses to this request if you do a few small things:

First, don’t simply state that balance is “bad” as if it was fact: bring your proof. Show the numbers you have showing that, eg, some things underperform and others overperform, as well as the situations and support around those numbers.

Without that you are in a position where the developers — who you assert are doing a terrible job of this right now — are going to have to gather that. If they really are so bad at doing it, and they do it again, why would we expect a different outcome?

Second, bring concrete suggestions, not just statements that assume “everyone” can tell what you mean when you say, for example, “power creep”, or that “skills” don’t need to hit that hard.

Which skills do you mean? How do they fail — is it just too bursty, but balanced if you spread the same damage over ten seconds? Is it painful unless you have resistance or condition cleanses, or just too powerful in all circumstances?

Is this specific to some game modes, like PvP or WvW, or is it universal? Is it only PvE content?

Finally, it would help if you explained why you think “more” balance patches would improve the situation: I can fill in my own ideas of why you might think that, but … it’s your argument, and you probably want your ideas of why in the developers heads when they think about this, not their own, right?

Monthly or lol ..biweekly (seriously!!??) balance patches bring absolutely NOTHING, nor are they in the absolutelslightest bit REALISTICAL to make them happen.

That will be just only a massive waste of time, ressources, people and money for ANet.

When will people start to realize, that the only way to give this game a better balancing right now is by actualizing, adapting and modernizing the outdated aspects of GW2’s combat system?

Consequent Skill and Trait Changes are no method to balance a game, if thats the only method that you use as developer, while you ignore 95% of all the rest of the games combat system mechanics that play also too an important role and are a part of Game balance as well.
Keeping Skills and Traits consequently updated and balanced in a more frequent manner is just only the way of finetuning the game.
Something, that you need to do mostly only after BIG CHANGES and from that point on it should be enough to overlook those things like every 2-3 months like Naet does right now – thats enough.

But ANet ignored now for over 4 years now all the rest of the game.
The game is in a heavy important need of getting its bigger combat system mechanics FINALLY ADJUSTED to all the tons of Skill and Trait Changes they did over the years, due to the implementation of Elite Specs, the change on the Condition System that brought alot of things ingame out of control, the outdated Upgrades, the outdated Health System that was never designed and balanced around all this Power Creep of the last years.

What Anet does here for 4 years now is changing and addign things into the game constantly and believing, that doing permanently only number changes here and there on Skilsl and Traits is basically their “solution for everything”, either because they are clueless what to do else, inspirationless – or just have not the ressources to do anything else and simple number changes are just the cheapest way of bringing some kind of “alteration” to the stale game in the simple hope, that these alterations are good enough to balance the game, to eventually cause a change strong enough to alterate the Meta Game State perhaps, so that people stop complaining about certain thing,s until people find out the next super ultimate builds that are “best” and become the next Meta.

However – Balance Patches aren’t there just to switch over Meta Playstyles of Gamers in GW2.
The sense behind a Balance Patch is it to equalize Gameplay Mechanics in a game as good as possible in regard of Class Mechanics, the Combat System, Character Progression and other Game Elements that need to get adjustments, so that these mechanics make again more FUN for the majority of the playerbase, than those things did for the majority of players before of the Balance Patch and that in a negetative as much as like positive way – meaning, things can get improved AND nerfed if needed, if those changes are for the greater good of the overall balance for everyone and everythign that is part of the game – players included – but personal interests of players excluded – what means, that players need to be able to accept also, if thigns that they personally like, need to get nerfed, if its for the greater good of the general game balance – because if somethign gets nerfed, this means at the same moment also, that you have increased chances to win over somebody, which tries to use the nerfed mechanic against you in the game, like in PvP or WvW.
theres always two sides of a coin in balance. Not every change must be seen only negative.
There is always also something positive to be seen in a change, that on first view looks like a nerf to your personal most liked skill maybe only.

GW2 needs to get rid of Equipment Stats, that would make alot of things essentially easier to balance for ANet, and would make it easier possible to adjust and rework the Attribute System with Dual Effects, not only to make Attributes more impactful and interesting, but it would give GW2 something back that GW1 already had and that is needed, if GW2 should ever get the quality of life, that comes with a build Template System for quicker access to your Builds with various Attribute Settings for that people need to be able to change anytime they want their Attributes, without that they are bonded to any kind of equipment which you need to carry around with you permanently just so that you can play the builds you want.

In that kind was GW1 so much more advanced over GW2 with its simpler Attribute System that allowed the player to reset the “setting” anytime you wanted outside of combat and distribute your attributes AS YOU LIKE for a small fee of gold, so that the game had also a tiny money sink from this feature as well.

ANet would do best on their game and its state of balance, if they finally would get their heads out of the sand, quit playing ostrich and begin to take a look onto the aspects of the game, that they permanently ignored to keep balanced for the last 4 years.

That are the changes, which are then at the end of the day meaningful and are it, what GW2 needs now the most to bring this game in any kind of way – FORWARD.
Because permanent skill and trait number changes bring this game not forward, they just keep the game STALE and are nothing but an ILLUSION OF BALANCE, if they are the only thing that a game developer does for its game for years and ongoing!!

Balance is bad in every game.

Sartharina.3542:

Balance is bad in every game.

go play ff14

Sartharina.3542:

Balance is bad in every game.

I think the correct spelling is, “balance is <believed by the forum posters to be> bad in every game.”

Over in WoW-ville, where you have statistically significant numbers of records of raid DPS, people still whine about how something was “nerfed into the ground, literally unplayable, can’t raid at all” because it drops, like, one percent … to sit exactly in the middle of the pack in terms of real world DPS.

I suspect it’s rooted in the belief that build mechanics are more important than player skill that is so common — people really can’t tell that skill matters, and chase after the “best” class so often, that they really form more or less an “RNG” input to the class, and so can’t distinguish “class” from “self”.

How about unbinding weapons and utilities from Elite specs? Keep it so you need the expac to use said weapons but allow them to be used without having to use said Elite spec.

Lahmia.2193:

How about unbinding weapons and utilities from Elite specs? Keep it so you need the expac to use said weapons but allow them to be used without having to use said Elite spec.

interestimg suggestion, made the same one for only the weapons tho because i believe that it will get hard to balance from there. So i feel like having the weapon unlocked is the sweet spot

Personally I would love to see a game say “You know what? We are not aiming for 100% balance. We will make everything possible for every class, but styles are different so some things may be harder for one class over another. Another part of the game could be the opposite, so it works out in the end.”

That way, you decide what to play based on if it is fun or not. You still balance, but not on a micromanaged level that doesn’t ultimately end in balance anyway.

Not GW2, it wasn’t designed for it, but someday, some game…

Lahmia.2193:

How about unbinding weapons and utilities from Elite specs? Keep it so you need the expac to use said weapons but allow them to be used without having to use said Elite spec.

Thats that Anet definetely needs to do, to make sure, that Core Classes get closer to Elite Specs in regard of balancing them between each other..

Best would be, like I suggested it to make Elite Specializations a 2 STEP Character Progression System.

1. Step = You learn about the lore from the new Elite Specialization that you want to LEARN ABOUT to become specialized with your Character in your profession.
Unlocks the Elite Specialization with its Weapons, Skills and Traits for your Account and makes them useable for all of your Characters that are of the required Core Class to learn the Elite Specialization you learned about by each individual Character.
To do that, you have to read ingame books about Specializations of your Core Class and its Core Talents, you have to talk to Masters of your Proffession in the hope, that they eventualyl will teach you somethign that will let you progress in specializing your Character towards the Core Talents that are required to LEARN the Elite Specialization.

2. Step. Once you have learned an Elite Specialization, your next and final step of Character progression and part of a better balanced game would be, that you have to MASTER your learned Elite Specialization by succcessfully fulfilling various kinds of Trials for the Elite Specialization’s Core Talents that come from Grandmasters that you have to search and find all over Tyria.
Once you have cleared all of the Trials of the Grandmasters of your Elite Specialization that you want to master, then you have truly mastered your Specialization of your Coure Class to the point, that this will unlock for your Character to use basicalyl everything of the mastered Elite Specialization with the Core Class, with the only exeptions being the Traits naturally and the Elite Skill, which should belong to the build of using said Elite Specialization, thats in the end why it are Elite Skills, they should be only useable by their fitting Elite Specializations.
This meaning, the Core Class should have no Elite Skills, when using a Core Class the player should be able to use instead one Utility Skill more. All current Elite Skills should get then reworked for Elite Specializations.

This would lead then to the point, that if I mastered for example with my Thief the Daredevil Specialization, then I will be able to wield also as Thief the Staff Weapon and use the Daredevil’s Utility Skills, but not their Traits, nor their Elite Skills that are linked to the Daredevil, in that case it would be for example Impact Strike + Dagger Storm which should be only useable as Daredevil.
But do I want to use also their Traits and Elite Skills as well, then I have to activate the Daredevil Traitline to get that way access to their Traits and their linked to the specialization’s Elite Skills too.

That system will bring Core Classes and Elite Specs closer to each other, if Core Classes get at least partwise the access of the E-Spec gameplay once you have mastered with your Character the Specialization. Plus it will create more Build Diversity as it woudl allo then to use the Specialization Weapons with Traitline Combos of the Core Class, that are under the current system impossible to make, like a Staff Build in this example, that plays with 3 Core Class Traitlines as it is currently forced upon us that we need to use the Daredevil traintline just to be able to use the Staff Weapon, which means one Traitline is automatically fix and takes away the option to combine 3 Core Class Traitlines to play them together with the Staff in that case.
My system would solve that and would that way allow all players for more build freedom.

Not to say that we have good or bad balance in this game but it’s funny to see how many people mistake poor gameplay for a lack of balance. GW2 is certainly easy to make that mistake; many people are highly capable of playing ‘badly balanced’ classes. As much as Anet tries, they can’t bring balance to bad players.

Furthermore, there is so little gain to be made from what we think of as balance, I’m surprised to see people mistaking balancing patches as primarily equalization efforts; those patches are simply ways to adjust within the class and should be in no way associated with equalizing play between classes. That’s just a ridiculous thing to even attempt in a game such as this.