Why is entire game being balanced around sPvP

Why is entire game being balanced around sPvP

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Posted by: cillard.3986

cillard.3986

I am confused at to why balance changes are going live in the next patch that will affect the game as a whole when the issues that generated to problems are mainly isolated to sPvP. We all get that certain classes are problematic in sPvP when celestial amulet stats are combined with might stacking, but this simply isn’t the case in the rest of the game.

My worry is that many of these changes will impact things negatively in every other aspect of the game. Why not just make some of these balance changes to sPvP only as that is the only place they are applicable?

Disclaimer: If you are actually implementing these changes in sPvP only, I did not see where that was communicated, so I apologize.

Thanks

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Posted by: Sarrs.4831

Sarrs.4831

Because PvE balance is relatively easy to do compared to PvP balance. If damage is too low because of these Might changes, they can do a blanket tuning down of NPC HP. I suspect, though, that ANet won’t do this, because stacking damage is a very dominant strategy in PvE and making an adjustment to Might helps to address this dominance.

Nalhadia – Kaineng

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Posted by: Brother Grimm.5176

Brother Grimm.5176

The only effect it can possibly have on PvE is to make dungeon runners take a few minutes longer to do a run (not game-breaking). Maybe it takes a few minutes longer to take down a World Boss (possible issue that may need to be addressed).

Actually, using the term “game balance” when talking about PvE is kind of chuckle worthy (as the PvE side of the game has very few “difficult” parts).

We go out in the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That’s the way that lady luck dances

(edited by Brother Grimm.5176)

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Posted by: Meglobob.8620

Meglobob.8620

Esports….you got to admire Anet’s determination if nothing else! Is there hope in China?

Shame they are happy to annoy there PvE & WvW players with that ‘spvp balance’ rubbish thou. Its why we have so few elite/utility/healing skills and so poor/limited choice with traits. To keep it as simple as possible so Esports can be as balanced as possible.

(edited by Meglobob.8620)

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Posted by: xDudisx.5914

xDudisx.5914

I am confused at to why balance changes are going live in the next patch that will affect the game as a whole when the issues that generated to problems are mainly isolated to sPvP. We all get that certain classes are problematic in sPvP when celestial amulet stats are combined with might stacking, but this simply isn’t the case in the rest of the game.

My worry is that many of these changes will impact things negatively in every other aspect of the game. Why not just make some of these balance changes to sPvP only as that is the only place they are applicable?

Disclaimer: If you are actually implementing these changes in sPvP only, I did not see where that was communicated, so I apologize.

Thanks

Because they keep pushing us the non popular conquest mode and trying to make it esport. This ends up creating problem for all the other game areas and preventing us from getting new pvp modes.

Ouroboro Knight’s [OK]

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Posted by: dlonie.6547

dlonie.6547

The funny truth:

They can’t answer questions like these or engage in discussion about it because they don’t want to give away story spoilers.

True story.

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Posted by: Neural.1824

Neural.1824

Because GW2 is going to be an e-sport, at any cost, even, I believe, if it destroys the game.

Where are my gem sales? I want gem sales! Nerf EVERYTHING!

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Posted by: CureForLiving.5360

CureForLiving.5360

I still think that you should balance PvP and PvE separably. But that’s just crazy talk I know.

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Posted by: cillard.3986

cillard.3986

Because PvE balance is relatively easy to do compared to PvP balance.

You are leaving out WvW from your reply.

Also, your logic isn’t very good. Why potentially unbalance other aspects of the game to try and balance sPvP when you can just make the changes specific to sPvP only. Seems to me it is a lose-lose situation as you create more work for your company while kittening off your player base at the same time.

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Posted by: cillard.3986

cillard.3986

The only effect it can possibly have on PvE is to make dungeon runners take a few minutes longer to do a run (not game-breaking). Maybe it takes a few minutes longer to take down a World Boss (possible issue that may need to be addressed).

Actually, using the term “game balance” when talking about PvE is kind of chuckle worthy (as the PvE side of the game has very few “difficult” parts).

I didn’t mention PvE specifically. Outside of sPvP, there is both PvE and WvW. I will contend that WvW is even more difficult to balance than sPvP because of all the added variables like the food and buffs.

There is no question, for example, that a cele ele is balance issue in sPvP. However in WvW, they are not even close to being optimal for most situations. Why not just limit balance changes for sPvP to sPvP only as they have for other changes in the past?

You really aren’t making a counter argument to my statement.

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Posted by: Ensign.2189

Ensign.2189

Most of the balance changes are naturally going to focus on sPvP, as it’s the most sensitive; 3-5% tweaks can be a pretty big deal in a format characterized by dueling as even something minor like that can swing who is favored in a match-up.

Balance in PvE on the other hand is really coarse. Small changes in damage output or defense simply do not matter there at all. PvE centered balance changes are necessarily structural in nature – big changes to numbers to make unused skills viable, restructuring of traits or weapons, etc.

So generally you fine tune around PvP and make structural changes to get lots of things in the same ballpark for PvE – making sure the PvE changes don’t lead to something degenerate in PvP, and generally not caring about the small tweaks percolating out to PvE as it so rarely matters.

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Posted by: Rauderi.8706

Rauderi.8706

Most of the balance changes are naturally going to focus on sPvP, as it’s the most sensitive; 3-5% tweaks can be a pretty big deal in a format characterized by dueling as even something minor like that can swing who is favored in a match-up.

Balance in PvE on the other hand is really coarse. Small changes in damage output or defense simply do not matter there at all. PvE centered balance changes are necessarily structural in nature – big changes to numbers to make unused skills viable, restructuring of traits or weapons, etc.

So generally you fine tune around PvP and make structural changes to get lots of things in the same ballpark for PvE – making sure the PvE changes don’t lead to something degenerate in PvP, and generally not caring about the small tweaks percolating out to PvE as it so rarely matters.

That’s likely the most even-handed answer we’re going to see.
/hat-tip

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

The only effect it can possibly have on PvE is to make dungeon runners take a few minutes longer to do a run (not game-breaking). Maybe it takes a few minutes longer to take down a World Boss (possible issue that may need to be addressed).

Actually, using the term “game balance” when talking about PvE is kind of chuckle worthy (as the PvE side of the game has very few “difficult” parts).

I didn’t mention PvE specifically. Outside of sPvP, there is both PvE and WvW. I will contend that WvW is even more difficult to balance than sPvP because of all the added variables like the food and buffs.

There is no question, for example, that a cele ele is balance issue in sPvP. However in WvW, they are not even close to being optimal for most situations. Why not just limit balance changes for sPvP to sPvP only as they have for other changes in the past?

You really aren’t making a counter argument to my statement.

because it takes more time/resources than they are willing to dedicate for seperate balancing.
also, the spvp and balancing team shares (or at least used to share) basically the same people give or take. Also spvp testing is more direct, doesnt require huge numbers of people (like wvw) and is self contained.

Not saying its a good idea, its actually a really bad idea for pve balance, which is less about balance between players, and more about cool fun stuff for fighting npcs. But its been years, they probably arent ever going to change this policy, and hence many problems will occur.

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Posted by: laokoko.7403

laokoko.7403

I find that the class that can might stack are far superior in pve also. That being said it is mostly for premade dungeon run.

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Posted by: Jski.6180

Jski.6180

Because PvE balance is relatively easy to do compared to PvP balance.

You are leaving out WvW from your reply.

Also, your logic isn’t very good. Why potentially unbalance other aspects of the game to try and balance sPvP when you can just make the changes specific to sPvP only. Seems to me it is a lose-lose situation as you create more work for your company while kittening off your player base at the same time.

Wvw not made to be balanced in a lot of ways it CANT be balanced that just how open pvp works and when you add in large numbers that have no min or high max to the mix you see even less balancing.

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Posted by: Narkodx.1472

Narkodx.1472

Short Answer

sPvP = always 5 v 5 standardized gear and amulets – easy to balance

WvW = 50v90 or anywhere in between with no standard to stats food buffs or gear – impossible to balance

PvE = Cruise Control – no need to balance

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Posted by: Waldir.2571

Waldir.2571

History repeats itself, gw1 veterans will remember how hard anet tried to balance pve and pvp together for years only to realize at the end that it made more sence to balance them separate, hence pvp and pve versions of skills were born, I really don’t understand why that lesson wasn’t learned and we are back where we started, trying to balance both game modes together.

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Posted by: PaxTheGreatOne.9472

PaxTheGreatOne.9472

Well I’m just a simple person. I play PvE and WvW. I do see 1 thing, which was the wish for arenanet to keep all skills and traits working the same in all modes of play.

Which has caused way too many problems already.

All conditions in PvE have been nerfed, nobody cared about conditions too much, but after the nerf they were destroyed. Only place where you’d run condition on a character was WvW, where peole complained and complained while in a zerg you’d never get conditions anyways.

Confusion was nerfed to seconds in PvE allowing no hit scenario’s against most dungeon bosses, wvw bosses, veterans and normal spawns tyhroghout PvE, after a year, this is reversed, with 33% more damage and a return of original durations, or at least longer durations. now allowing for 2 hits if you time well..

But PvP and other PvP like structures need to be fair… people say… Some people actually said well conditions are Op, cause when I bring 1 or no condi removal I’ll die…
This was the actual reason to do so…

Might is just te next step. I already posted somewhere might nerfs actually hit the builds with lower power and condition duration, so It will hit celestial harder. and all builds with powerand/or codnition damage as a minor stat.
This sounds nice and balancing, but builds with power and condition damage on a major stat will be buffed, relatively that is.

Celestial isn’t all powerful, it’s versatile. You choose to be a jack of all trades, master of none, and really it is not that powerfull, but this is compensated by being everything at the same time. They should bring back the double pvp amulet allowing a base stat and a jewel based stat. just to make other builds more versatile.

23 lvl 80’s, 9 times map, 4ele, 4ncr, 3war, 3grd, 3rgr, 2thf, 2msm, 1eng, 1 rev.
Been There, Done That & Will do it again…except maybe world completion.

(edited by PaxTheGreatOne.9472)

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Posted by: Sarrs.4831

Sarrs.4831

You are leaving out WvW from your reply.

Sure am, mostly because I don’t know jack about WvW. However, because of WvW scale and mechanics, it’s very hard to see changes having a significant impact in the short term. The meta doesn’t move very quickly at all. You can’t reasonably test the impact of the changes. Therefore, it’s better for changes to be tested in a more quickly moving meta environment (sPvP), and assume the fundamentals work more or less the same.

Also, your logic isn’t very good. Why potentially unbalance other aspects of the game to try and balance sPvP when you can just make the changes specific to sPvP only. Seems to me it is a lose-lose situation as you create more work for your company while kittening off your player base at the same time.

Because making changes to the entire ruleset of a game, rather than parts of the ruleset, means less work down the line. Making exceptions makes more work for people on both ends of the game; people programming the game need to code those exceptions and need to add separate code for each game mode, and it also makes it more difficult for the players to understand.

Sure, in a perfect world, it might be nice to have three completely different sets of rules, but that’s very difficult to execute in practice and it may not even result in the best game.

This all also assumes that they haven’t thought long and hard about the impacts of a Might nerf in PvE and decided that PvE actually does need to have Might nerfed.

Nalhadia – Kaineng

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Posted by: cillard.3986

cillard.3986

Because PvE balance is relatively easy to do compared to PvP balance.

You are leaving out WvW from your reply.

Also, your logic isn’t very good. Why potentially unbalance other aspects of the game to try and balance sPvP when you can just make the changes specific to sPvP only. Seems to me it is a lose-lose situation as you create more work for your company while kittening off your player base at the same time.

Wvw not made to be balanced in a lot of ways it CANT be balanced that just how open pvp works and when you add in large numbers that have no min or high max to the mix you see even less balancing.

Again.

What reason is there for not balancing sPvP in sPvP only? It has been done in the past.

The issues they are balancing for are generated from sPvP only.

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Posted by: cillard.3986

cillard.3986

Most of the balance changes are naturally going to focus on sPvP, as it’s the most sensitive; 3-5% tweaks can be a pretty big deal in a format characterized by dueling as even something minor like that can swing who is favored in a match-up.

Balance in PvE on the other hand is really coarse. Small changes in damage output or defense simply do not matter there at all. PvE centered balance changes are necessarily structural in nature – big changes to numbers to make unused skills viable, restructuring of traits or weapons, etc.

So generally you fine tune around PvP and make structural changes to get lots of things in the same ballpark for PvE – making sure the PvE changes don’t lead to something degenerate in PvP, and generally not caring about the small tweaks percolating out to PvE as it so rarely matters.

You are basically saying that because sPvP is difficult to balance, screw PvE and WvW. That is a cop out and not a real reason to limit sPvP balance changes to sPvP only. Like I have said numerous times, it has already been done in this game for other balance issues, so it is not a groundbreaking concept.

As far as PvE goes, I could care less about it on a personal note. I only play this game to kill other players, not mindless scripted encounters. There is literally not one valid reason to limit impact of needed changes for sPvP to the sPvP environment only. If anything, I can easily make an argument that WvW is way more difficult to balance than sPvP and because it has a larger player base it should be the priority when it comes to balance changes. That, however, would be an entirely different discussion and not really relevant to the issue I am raising.

So again why not balance sPvP in sPvP only?

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Posted by: cillard.3986

cillard.3986

Because making changes to the entire ruleset of a game, rather than parts of the ruleset, means less work down the line. Making exceptions makes more work for people on both ends of the game; people programming the game need to code those exceptions and need to add separate code for each game mode, and it also makes it more difficult for the players to understand.

They have already gone that route though. Certain abilities already work differently in sPvP than they do in other aspects of the game.

Without being intimate with the code, you really can’t say how much more work it may or may not be. It could be something as simple as a game mode flag check and two lines of code to set the might stack value (for example) …. I don’t know the source and neither do you. They found it viable enough to do in the past, so why not now?

Also, I believe your logic is still flawed at the base level. Potentially creating issues in two other facets of the game, both with far more players and content than sPvP, can be vastly more work and time to resolve in the end.

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Posted by: cillard.3986

cillard.3986

Short Answer

sPvP = always 5 v 5 standardized gear and amulets – easy to balance

WvW = 50v90 or anywhere in between with no standard to stats food buffs or gear – impossible to balance

PvE = Cruise Control – no need to balance

Like I told the others and for the same reasons, that isn’t an answer.

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Posted by: digiowl.9620

digiowl.9620

Most of the balance changes are naturally going to focus on sPvP, as it’s the most sensitive

PVE would be just as sensitive if the base mob design was something other than bags of health swinging tactical nukes.

You can’t balance both at once when the PVE and PVP metas are polar opposites.

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Posted by: Celestina.2894

Celestina.2894

I still think that you should balance PvP and PvE separably. But that’s just crazy talk I know.

They did back in GW1, why they stopped for GW2 just boggles my mind.

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Posted by: Sorel.4870

Sorel.4870

The might nerf comes from pvp, but even in PvE the amount of additional stats this buff gives is insane. Tuning it down is not necessarily a bad thing. And I don’t know if you noticed, but the confusion patch is for PvE only, sir there IS some kind of PvE balance.

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Posted by: DavidH.7380

DavidH.7380

I think the major harm to PvE comes from limiting the range of potential professions and skills to those which can be roughly balanced for PvP. I suspect a lot more interesting professions and play styles could be introduced if the only requirement was that they be fun and roughly equally effective in PvE.

Since we already have PvP, and the professions are already designed around it, the little balancing tweaks here and there are relatively minor impacts on the PvE game.

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Posted by: Ensign.2189

Ensign.2189

What reason is there for not balancing sPvP in sPvP only? It has been done in the past.

It’s utterly toxic for the continuity of the game and presents a much more substantial burden for players transitioning from one game mode to another than people probably realize.

Outside the handful of people who bought the game solely for sPvP, the bulk of their players play both – either coming in with that goal deliberately, or starting in PvE and deciding to try out that PvP thing later on. The fact that they can’t just take their character that they’ve been playing for 100 hours and go fight people with it is already a big hurdle. You can’t even re-create your build though, since skills and sometimes even core mechanics work much differently – not just that certain things are better or worse in context, but the button doesn’t do what you are used to it doing.

The more you separate the game modes, the harder it is for people to transition from one to the other, and the harder it is for people to keep track of what is going on in each. This isn’t to say that there aren’t reasons to split skills or mechanics in different contexts, but you really should have a fantastically good reason to do so and should endeavor to keep the two as similar as possible across modes despite the split.

Historically, the reason why skills were split is because PvE players, at least the PvE players on forums that reacted to balance changes, are utterly unconcerned about game balance but fanatical that the power of their character never goes down under any circumstances. ‘split this skill’ is rarely a call used for game balance reasons, and virtually always a call of ‘this is a nerf, you should never nerf PvE, so split it and leave my character alone’.

You saw a lot of split skills early on in GW2 when the people overseeing balance decisions were utterly terrified of upsetting the ‘no nerfs ever’ forum warriors; the people in charge now seem to be much better at their jobs. While I can certainly imagine there being reasons to split skills in really specific circumstances, I can’t see any of the current skill or mechanic splits being necessary enough to have been good decisions.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

I’m with Ensign.

Ultimately balance comes down to comparing x to y. This involves looking at various aspects of a character (skill, weapon coefficient, etc.) and how it fits into a combination of other aspects of a build and then comparing the results to the results available to other builds. This by necessity involves comparing one thing to another thing, or one thing to similar things.

WvW zerg play and large-scale PvE would be extremely difficult to use as a format for balance. You never know what you’re going to get. Quantity has a quality all its own. Making adjustments to balance based on how builds work in that type of content would be a fool’s errand.

If you look at WvW roaming builds, many of the published ones use similar skills and traits as comparable sPvP builds for the same profession. Solo/small group PvE, on the other hand, is a different animal. Mobs fight very differently than players. They don’t (generally) have both high sustain and high burst in the same build. They also (again, generally) don’t bounce around like jack-in-the-boxes either. Finally, they don’t post threads saying, “Nerf X build, it’s OP!”

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Posted by: Kaz.5430

Kaz.5430

Not that I’m saying that I like the might nerf, but there seems to be a trend in this thread of asking when ANet will start creating separate versions of skills for PvP.

They ‘Have’ made a PvP/PvE separation in these very balance changes if you read them fully.

Confusion: The effect of condition damage on confusion has been increased by 33% in PvE only. This change does not affect PvP or WvW.

That must mean that they feel that there is a PvE reason to do the might nerf, or they would have split it just like they split confusion. Not sure what it is, but they clearly are no longer adverse to splitting skill effects in PvP and PvE based.

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Posted by: Albadaran.1283

Albadaran.1283

The main reason is that it hardly effects PvE. Group events will still be succesful in a full map if everyone knows what he/she needs to do, and those who play solo (mostly for grinding, mining) will hardly notice any difference.

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

I’m with Ensign.

Ultimately balance comes down to comparing x to y. This involves looking at various aspects of a character (skill, weapon coefficient, etc.) and how it fits into a combination of other aspects of a build and then comparing the results to the results available to other builds. This by necessity involves comparing one thing to another thing, or one thing to similar things.

WvW zerg play and large-scale PvE would be extremely difficult to use as a format for balance. You never know what you’re going to get. Quantity has a quality all its own. Making adjustments to balance based on how builds work in that type of content would be a fool’s errand.

If you look at WvW roaming builds, many of the published ones use similar skills and traits as comparable sPvP builds for the same profession. Solo/small group PvE, on the other hand, is a different animal. Mobs fight very differently than players. They don’t (generally) have both high sustain and high burst in the same build. They also (again, generally) don’t bounce around like jack-in-the-boxes either. Finally, they don’t post threads saying, “Nerf X build, it’s OP!”

the problem both of you are ignoring, is that whats fun in pvp and whats fun in pve is dramatically different, its not just about power, its about mechanics.
for many moons, confusion was almost completely useless in pve due to pvp balance
for many moons illusion of life is not worth it in pvp due to pve balance.
the fact is the two modes a drastically different in playstyle, goals, and responsiveness.

you will never have retaliation make sense in pvp and pve with the same ruleset, it just doesnt work.
lets take a look at might, in pve, might is a group effort, maintaining it and having everyone benefit from it is the name of the game, why reduce the effectiveness off good play? dont say because some dont have access to it, for most jobs the best way to stack might is through combo fields and team coordination, and everyone has blast finishers, and the ones who have few tend to have fire fields.

fact is spvp is not a good base for balancing, it is a specific mode, with specific needs, it will always be so, unless they can make pve encounters more like pvp, which aint gonna happen

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Posted by: EnemyCrusher.7324

EnemyCrusher.7324

I still think that you should balance PvP and PvE separably. But that’s just crazy talk I know.

They already do.

I am confused at to why balance changes are going live in the next patch that will affect the game as a whole when the issues that generated to problems are mainly isolated to sPvP. We all get that certain classes are problematic in sPvP when celestial amulet stats are combined with might stacking, but this simply isn’t the case in the rest of the game.

My worry is that many of these changes will impact things negatively in every other aspect of the game. Why not just make some of these balance changes to sPvP only as that is the only place they are applicable?

Directly from the upcoming balance changes that you’re referencing:

Confusion
Along with the change to might, we are also looking at the confusion condition in PvE. Confused creatures generally don’t swing as often, and the effects of the condition can feel a bit lackluster when they hit. To this end, we’ll improve the damage of confusion in PvE only.

  • Confusion: The effect of condition damage on confusion has been increased by 33% in PvE only. This change does not affect PvP or WvW.
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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

The main reason is that it hardly effects PvE. Group events will still be succesful in a full map if everyone knows what he/she needs to do, and those who play solo (mostly for grinding, mining) will hardly notice any difference.

you dont notice the small changes, but overall you notice that your charachter is a lot less effective than they used to be in various ways. Sure you can still win, but is it as exciting?
the focus of skill design in pve should be around creating exciting worthwhile feeling skills/engaging abilities. The focus of skill design for pvp is creating a good fair match with counterplay. Its just wildly different goals

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Skill splits for different formats in GW1 were awesome. I would play my classes completely differently in PvP than in PvE in GW1 and I loved it. I really wish they would do that with GW2 and have skills do different things in PvE than they do in WvW or PvP. Characters should be a little OP in PvE. Especially since all we are doing is zerging nowadays anyways.

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Posted by: Ensign.2189

Ensign.2189

Mobs fight very differently than players. They don’t (generally) have both high sustain and high burst in the same build. They also (again, generally) don’t bounce around like jack-in-the-boxes either. Finally, they don’t post threads saying, “Nerf X build, it’s OP!”

Exactly. The big difference in PvE, especially very end game PvE, is that you know exactly what you are facing. You can pick the weapons and skills and traits you want and figure out a strategy to counter whatever is thrown at you, and the encounter doesn’t change. It’s then just a matter of practicing the encounter again and again until you have it down pat. Lupi is not an easy encounter by any measure, but players have practiced it to the point of soloing it reliably now; other encounters are the same way.

Chipping away at numbers without functionally altering any of the skills can only slightly raise or lower the difficulty of achieving such feats – it cannot change that general paradigm.

Balance in PvE is about making sure no class gets totally left behind in those high performance environments, and providing several options so that less cutthroat players can play how they want with reasonable success. Everything else in PvE is noise and doesn’t matter.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

the problem both of you are ignoring, is that whats fun in pvp and whats fun in pve is dramatically different, its not just about power, its about mechanics.

for many moons, confusion was almost completely useless in pve due to pvp balance
for many moons illusion of life is not worth it in pvp due to pve balance. the fact is the two modes a drastically different in playstyle, goals, and responsiveness.

you will never have retaliation make sense in pvp and pve with the same ruleset, it just doesnt work.

lets take a look at might, in pve, might is a group effort, maintaining it and having everyone benefit from it is the name of the game, why reduce the effectiveness off good play? dont say because some dont have access to it, for most jobs the best way to stack might is through combo fields and team coordination, and everyone has blast finishers, and the ones who have few tend to have fire fields.

fact is spvp is not a good base for balancing, it is a specific mode, with specific needs, it will always be so, unless they can make pve encounters more like pvp, which aint gonna happen

you dont notice the small changes, but overall you notice that your charachter is a lot less effective than they used to be in various ways. Sure you can still win, but is it as exciting?

the focus of skill design in pve should be around creating exciting worthwhile feeling skills/engaging abilities. The focus of skill design for pvp is creating a good fair match with counterplay. Its just wildly different goals.

It sounds like you’re on the same wavelength as the people Ensign was talking about, those who believe that PvE skills should only be buffed, never nerfed. However, developers also have to consider the effect that skills/traits and mechanics have on PvE content. If a skill or buff is too powerful, it can further trivialize already trivial content. ANet has to decide whether to please Home Improvement fans (More Power!) or please those who want a tiny bit of challenge in PvE.

Might will still be worth stacking next week. Might-stacking will still reward coordinated play. The reward will be somewhat less, but it will probably still be the go-to mechanic. If, as seems unlikely, it makes room for other combo fields than fire to be welcome in PvE, I would have a hard time thinking that is a bad thing.

As to Confusion… I am unsure whether the PvE/PvP split of this debuff’s damage is going to make PvE use more desirable. If most mobs die before they use two skills anyway, the damage increase will not be that noticeable. Also, enough skills produce confusion that in any decent zerg, one’s confusion might not be felt at all on longer-lived bosses.

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Posted by: Lothirieth.3408

Lothirieth.3408

Actually, using the term “game balance” when talking about PvE is kind of chuckle worthy (as the PvE side of the game has very few “difficult” parts).

I don’t think it’s very chuckle worthy when you consider things like the state of necromancers in PvE vs sPvP.

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Posted by: Coldtart.4785

Coldtart.4785

Actually, using the term “game balance” when talking about PvE is kind of chuckle worthy (as the PvE side of the game has very few “difficult” parts).

I don’t think it’s very chuckle worthy when you consider things like the state of necromancers in PvE vs sPvP.

Necro is only useless if you are trying to set a world record for the amount of game time to complete a run and only because any time cost at all makes something useless when doing that. If you are instead trying to optimise loot gains per unit of real time, which the vast majority of pvers are doing, the time cost of using a necro is less than the time cost of kicking them and finding a ‘better’ class. It’s unlikely that pugs play close enough to optimal for necro to even have a time cost.

In the end, the entire game is balanced around spvp because it’s the only content in the entire game where balance is relevant.

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Posted by: Shen Slayer.3058

Shen Slayer.3058

Since the majority of players are pve, while don’t they just rid of pvp.

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Posted by: Distaste.4801

Distaste.4801

Can you really call what they do with class changes as “balancing”, because for the past 2 years they’ve failed incredibly hard at it. Do you really want them to start poking around in PvE? It will sound like a joke, but I’d wager their first change would be to somehow either buff direct damage or reduce condition damage. Their changes are that backwards that it’s baffling. Of course once there is player outrage it will take another 6 months for a balance patch to fix them, but only in a way that breaks something else.

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Posted by: tigirius.9014

tigirius.9014

I am confused at to why balance changes are going live in the next patch that will affect the game as a whole when the issues that generated to problems are mainly isolated to sPvP. We all get that certain classes are problematic in sPvP when celestial amulet stats are combined with might stacking, but this simply isn’t the case in the rest of the game.

My worry is that many of these changes will impact things negatively in every other aspect of the game. Why not just make some of these balance changes to sPvP only as that is the only place they are applicable?

Disclaimer: If you are actually implementing these changes in sPvP only, I did not see where that was communicated, so I apologize.

Thanks

That train has come and gone actually. It’s impacted the rest of the game negatively now for over 2 years. Five minutes playing the Engineer will let you see that. There’s so much nerfed on that class not only do people do the Zerker thing in PVE but there’s like only 2 viable specs right now. It’s really sad honestly.

Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!

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Posted by: Tharomir.6985

Tharomir.6985

Esports is the answer.

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Posted by: naiasonod.9265

naiasonod.9265

Esports is the answer.

I have the vague suspicion that gw2 is as relevant in the world of esports as Mexican cat juggling is in the world of sports.

One is only the smartest person in the room if they are alone.

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Posted by: Tharomir.6985

Tharomir.6985

Esports is the answer.

I have the vague suspicion that gw2 is as relevant in the world of esports as Mexican cat juggling is in the world of sports.

True, but Anet still wants it to happen.

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Posted by: Wanderer.3248

Wanderer.3248

Imbalances in classes are most obvious when you pit those classes directly against one another.

That is all.

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

You are leaving out WvW from your reply.

Sure am, mostly because I don’t know jack about WvW. However, because of WvW scale and mechanics, it’s very hard to see changes having a significant impact in the short term. The meta doesn’t move very quickly at all. You can’t reasonably test the impact of the changes. Therefore, it’s better for changes to be tested in a more quickly moving meta environment (sPvP), and assume the fundamentals work more or less the same.

You know what they say about assuming. GW1 proved (and you’d think that Anet shouldn’t have forgotten about this, as that was a quite painful lesson to them) that in fact you cannot do balance for PvP modes and hope they will work as well for PvE ones, or that they can’t have serious negative impact.

Imbalances in classes are most obvious when you pit those classes directly against one another.

That is all.

And when you balance for competitive gameplay, and apply those changes to cooperative game modes, funny stuff can happen.
Just look at the first year of balance changes to rangers as seen from PvE perspective. That was really hilarious (if you weren’t playing rangers, that is).

Or consider how well condition balancing for PvP is relevant in PvE (hint, it mostly isn’t, especially where condi damage is concerned).
Actually, the condi buff we’re about to get, while made specifically for PvE, is still based on PvP principles, and completely misses the real reason why that condition was that bad in PvE. Which means of course that the fix will soon need a fix.

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

(edited by Astralporing.1957)

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Posted by: Carighan.6758

Carighan.6758

No one knows, tbh.
Probably because large-scale balance is hard. But then, small-scale is easy to get balanced for the first ~90%, and then flat out impossible. So there’s that.

The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.

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Posted by: nethykins.7986

nethykins.7986

E-sports, ooooh! Excitement, Ahhhh! /sarc

In all honesty, I think its 2 things:
1. To push the Esports thing further – lord knows why.
2. A lack of workforce (or perhaps just general “too much work”) to split the balance up between PvP and PvE.

So…~shrug~

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Posted by: Lalangamena.3694

Lalangamena.3694

because Anet after three years still sinking itself in an illusion that people play GW2 for the PVP.
that’s why we have rubbish PVE and repetitive WvW.

sPVP have to go.
it should be separate game, just like there is a separate gear, there should be separate traits and skills.