Guild Wars 2

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.

I would have worded it differently, but agreed. I can very much see how a single line of development could work on WvW and PvE simultaneously, given their mechanical similarity in player-to-outside interaction. But sPvP? Completely alien to the rest of the game.

Arenatnet doesn’t give a kitten about pve balance.

Other than perhaps an upper limit for the speed of which certain things can be farmed (to prevent an economic kittenup) I dont see any useful pve balancing being done.

There are massive differences in pve performance between classes.

Balancing around pvp does work, but only under the condition that the pve somewhat resembles the pvp – in GW, monsters use (for the most part, at least) the same skills players have access to. They also act in a similar way, and often times they’re even better and smarter (e.g. auto scatter on aoe) than your average Joe Pve.
Fast forward to GW2, where most mobs are large hp bags with hard hitting well-telegraphed (or not) nukes, never moving out of AoE or actively giving each other support, let alone healing themselves. If that was the case, they’d have much less hp to dig through while simultaniously having much more depth overall, requiring groups that actually utilize more than just the dmg aspect of the game with some extra might stacking.
Whoever came up with such mob designed pretty much sealed the deal for pve, which could’ve functioned much better, had the mob mechanics been more like those of real players.

That’d be my take on the matter, at least, as I don’t believe balancing around pvp (when the core mechanics are well-designed, that is) is inherently bad. It comes down to whether or not the pve was designed with pvp in mind, which is an obvious ‘no’ in GW2’s case. What a pity.

arenanet doesnt have the manpower or the know-how to balance the game. A while ago it was alreadt revealed that arenanet only has two people actually doing profession balance and changes. A pit of slander was opened by one of the early-testers about how much arenanet sucks up to the pvp “pro’s” from well before the game even started.

These pro teams were elevated on a pedestal and had a big hand in balance, because arenanet cant figure it out on their own they just listen to what the pvp pro’s have to say. arenanet didnt give a fek about pve or wvw so they never listened to anyone from that demographic.

These pro pvpers already left but arenanet continues to listen to the pvp community for game balance. Again, they cant figure it out on their own. So we get pvp changes, suggested by pvp players, that lazily get applied to all gamemodes.

The stupid and sad part is that the pvp community is a terrible place to get your balance suggestions. That community is to small to meta game and figure stuff out on their own, it’s to small and lazy to innovate. Those on top are comfortable to keep doing what they do, you won’t see a surprise comp or strategy that shakes things up. But arenanet is commited to listen to them.

So arenanet has to little manpower to balance all game modes on their own so changes are applied across the board. Along with a lack of understanding (from the very start) the game’s balance, which is why arenanet trusts in the smallest community who plays a game mode completely distinct from everything else.

It’s why we keep seing hilariously stupid changes. Or lack of changes, f.e. the Perplexity runes that messed up wvw were completely ignored. Untill they were being added to pvp and suddenly a nerf was needed because the pvp players now said it needed a nerf. And this kitten has to stop.

The answer is simply Esports. this game WILL be an esport, at ANY cost, even if they have to destroy PvE to get there.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The answer is simply Esports. this game WILL be an esport, at ANY cost, even if they have to destroy PvE to get there.

I am pretty sure this will hurt the game more than anything else. Most people that I know would rather have more pvp modes than having the game pushing the failed idea of esport conquest mode.

xDudisx.5914:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The answer is simply Esports. this game WILL be an esport, at ANY cost, even if they have to destroy PvE to get there.

I am pretty sure this will hurt the game more than anything else. Most people that I know would rather have more pvp modes than having the game pushing the failed idea of esport conquest mode.

Nobody ever told them that if they wanna be the very best,
Like no one ever was.
To catch us as their real test,
To train us as their cause.

They keep trying to make us do things we seem to not collectively, in majority, like (For example, game modes we aren’t already playing of our own volition).

They seem to be trying to out-stubborn what might well be a collective majority of us that dislike to outright despise some of the changes they’ve made (For example, their infliction of the trait locking system upon us all).

They seem to think they know what’s best. I’m not convinced they do.

They seem to think their metrics provide them with valuable data. If the changes and directions they’ve gone in have been mostly due to their metrics, I think their metrics could be safely assumed to be either grossly misapplied or simply useless to the points of making anything more fun for anyone (Except perhaps John Smith and whatever economists under him there may be that get to play with fun math all day).

Why? We don’t know. The only thing they appear to truly care about is making GW2 be taken seriously and be some new break-out thing of relevance on the E-sport scene.

I don’t think they’re ever going to get it to amount to more than a distant, vague ‘I think I heard about that – what is that even?’ topic in that arena though.

All in all, my impression really is that they’re utterly devoted to ignoring anything and everything that isn’t telling them what they want to hear or confirming what they’ve already either dictated to themselves as the only acceptable outcome, or had dictated to them as the only acceptable outcome from the Mighty Neurotic and Utterly Clueless In Western Markets NCSoft parent company.

In any game that spans across both game modes (PvP & PvE), it makes much more sense to balance things around PvP only, then balance the mobs and the events around that. The problem is, Anet seperated both systems by making gear different in each mode. So while the skills and traits are generally the same, the rest of your build is not.

They would have done a much better job had both systems done things in an identical way. Same skills, same traits, same gear, same stats. By having different stats between game modes it causes problems with skills and traits between modes as a result.

Personally, I feel the gear should be the same in all modes. Change PvE and WvW gear to work exactly the same as in PvP, and a lot of the existing problems between modes would be resolved. All the while we have different stats between modes, Anet will always be trying to balance for both modes and coming up against complications.

It makes no sense to me to seperate the gear. An advantage to only balancing around PvP, and having all gear work the way it does in PvP, is that players can easily swap between game modes with minimal need to change their builds. And this is something I believe is quite important to Anet, which is why it puzzled me that they seperated the way gear worked.

So, I do not think the issue is that they balance for PvP only (or mostly), this makes more sense, the problem is that they have to balance for both systems equally because of the gear, so by focusing more on PvP the PvE balancing suffers. But if both modes were equal (completely), balancing only for PvP would not be a problem. It would also give Anet an easier time of balancing things, as they would not need to seperately consider how gear is balanced in each of the three modes. They have made their work harder for themselves unnecessarily imo.

cillard.3986:

Jski.6180:

cillard.3986:

Sarrs.4831:

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.

That the thing they do but only to a point of small changes to game play. The aim for GW2 is to be the same game though out the types of games in it. You do not remove dodge rolls and add in the 3 class system for pve it would take the player out of GW2 and make it feel like a different game.

IndigoSundown.5419:

phys.7689:

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

phys.7689:

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.

its not really about buff and never nerfed, its about the difference in the way encounters play out.

for example, in pvp, someone having easy access to faster run speed (or escapes) is an unfair advantage.
In PVE, it is not, the monsters are not moving much and faster movement speed skills only allow you to get in and out of battle, or dodge deadly attacks more easily, which would make a lot of sense as a defensive skill for say elementalist or thief.

how often a theif can cloak and dagger is about fairness in pvp, in pve its about fighting rythym and max damage.

All these changes sum up to watering down of the style of each proffesions play. That sacrifice makes sense in pvp, where fairness and how it feels to fight against something is of paramount importance. But neither of these are even considerations in pve.

I have to wait .5 seconds on my mesmer to pull monsters for control/interupts because in pvp people felt other players werent given enough time to respond. This has elimated key party saving control for mesmer in pve, and made the skill a lot less usable/logical.
oh snap! 5 enemies are going to kill billy! let me pull them away! in .5 seconds… oh billy is dead.

Its not that pve skills should never be nerfed, its that if they are nerfed, it should be for pve reasons, in ways that are consistent with class designs/play and make sense for pve

Jski.6180:

cillard.3986:

Jski.6180:

cillard.3986:

Sarrs.4831:

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.

That the thing they do but only to a point of small changes to game play. The aim for GW2 is to be the same game though out the types of games in it. You do not remove dodge rolls and add in the 3 class system for pve it would take the player out of GW2 and make it feel like a different game.

problem is, it is a different game. Pretending otherwise is the big problem.

Unfortunately, not only poor class balance for pve, also the infamous combat mode and the lack of a targeting system is due spvp.

phys.7689:

I have to wait .5 seconds on my mesmer to pull monsters for control/interupts because in pvp people felt other players werent given enough time to respond. This has elimated key party saving control for mesmer in pve, and made the skill a lot less usable/logical.
oh snap! 5 enemies are going to kill billy! let me pull them away! in .5 seconds… oh billy is dead.

Its not that pve skills should never be nerfed, its that if they are nerfed, it should be for pve reasons, in ways that are consistent with class designs/play and make sense for pve

Well, then don’t spam your skills or teach billy how to play.
Sorry, but it’s true – I have been on my ranger for the first time in a year today and I absolutely hate knockback, always did, but I thought I put it to some good use and do a teq fight, so I choose the battery with the exploding zombies to knockback them and only had troubles with my cooldown once – it’s more than enough time if you don’t spam skills. And well, there were other people around who could’ve attacked/immobilized/feared the zombie.

Jana.6831:

phys.7689:

I have to wait .5 seconds on my mesmer to pull monsters for control/interupts because in pvp people felt other players werent given enough time to respond. This has elimated key party saving control for mesmer in pve, and made the skill a lot less usable/logical.
oh snap! 5 enemies are going to kill billy! let me pull them away! in .5 seconds… oh billy is dead.

Its not that pve skills should never be nerfed, its that if they are nerfed, it should be for pve reasons, in ways that are consistent with class designs/play and make sense for pve

Well, then don’t spam your skills or teach billy how to play.
Sorry, but it’s true – I have been on my ranger for the first time in a year today and I absolutely hate knockback, always did, but I thought I put it to some good use and do a teq fight, so I choose the battery with the exploding zombies to knockback them and only had troubles with my cooldown once – it’s more than enough time if you don’t spam skills. And well, there were other people around who could’ve attacked/immobilized/feared the zombie.

what does spamming your skills have to do with anything?
mesmer has a skill, which places a cripple on the floor, that you can turn in to a pull. It used to be instant, and you could use it for quick interupts, saves, or controlling monster positions.

They changed it to now require you to wait like 1 second before you can use it as a pull, because in pvp, they felt it didnt give players enough time to respond to the skill.

now the skill is less useful as an interupt, less reactionary, and provides less control in pve, so that in pvp it feels less cheesy.

It has nothing to do with spam or cooldowns. It would be like they made your knockback skill not work for 1 second after you hit the enemy so that players in spvp could dodge roll the knockback if they see they got hit by the skill.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Temporal_Curtain

can go into this

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Into_the_Void

point is anet makes changes based on how things feel in spvp, that dont really have anything to do with pve, and reduce your options, and playability in pve. Now, i have accepted that this is the way it will be, but it definately does not improve pve to have these changes that have no consideration for the goals/play of the pve game mode.

phys.7689:

what does spamming your skills have to do with anything?
mesmer has a skill, which places a cripple on the floor, that you can turn in to a pull. It used to be instant, and you could use it for quick interupts, saves, or controlling monster positions.

You mean the temporal curtain? 0,5 seconds is still pretty fast and you could also equip a GS if you want to interrupt – not every weaponset has got the same skills, so you have to adapt. I have no interrupt at all.
But you’re right, I got you wrong, that skill has got nothing to do with cooldowns, but still teach Billy how to play.

Edit (let’s see if I finish this before you reply): I get your point, I really do, i have been a pve player myself and never got why my vitality depended on wvw, I still don’t but since my focus has shifted to wvw and even pvp I don’t get what pve players are complaining about. And I guess that was the motivation behind my reply. I have no idea why the different games modes aren’t separated but I can imagine that doing a different balance for all 3 is a lot of work and might lead to some other problems “we only want warriors in our party” which then might make even more sense as in pvp the classes are balanced on how they compete against each other so they’re ideally “equally strong”

Jana.6831:

phys.7689:

what does spamming your skills have to do with anything?
mesmer has a skill, which places a cripple on the floor, that you can turn in to a pull. It used to be instant, and you could use it for quick interupts, saves, or controlling monster positions.

You mean the temporal curtain? 0,5 seconds is still pretty fast and you could also equip a GS if you want to interrupt – not every weaponset has got the same skills, so you have to adapt. I have no interrupt at all.
But you’re right, I got you wrong, that skill has got nothing to do with cooldowns, but still teach Billy how to play.

Edit (let’s see if I finish this before you reply): I get your point, I really do, i have been a pve player myself and never got why my vitality depended on wvw, I still don’t but since my focus has shifted to wvw and even pvp I don’t get what pve players are complaining about. And I guess that was the motivation behind my reply. I have no idea why the different games modes aren’t separated but I can imagine that doing a different balance for all 3 is a lot of work and might lead to some other problems “we only want warriors in our party” which then might make even more sense as in pvp the classes are balanced on how they compete against each other so they’re ideally “equally strong”

its a false idea that balance is universal. Balance in pvp is about how balanced it is to face another player. balance in pve is about no class becoming indespensible, and having viable abilities.

While in spvp, a cripple swiftness that you can turn into a pull knockdown is powerful, in pve, control is barely a factor, interupts are generally ignored, in fact they made the control game of mesmer, which was already fairly weak in pve, even weaker with the change.
And this is the flaw, its not the same game, the goal of the balance is difference, and whats good for one is not necessarily good for the other.
When they made the change they looked at how it would effect pve, and was probably like, ehh its not that big a deal, but the sum total of all these changes that arent a big deal = overall your class is less exciting, has less versatility/identity in pve.

phys.7689:

No, I think you think pve is more important than it is actually. It isn’t that hard, until you try to solo anything and I think even mesmers solo dungeons.
And well stuff that works on this boss doesn’t have to work on that boss – like I said: you have to adapt – you can’t interrupt a lot of bosses, so are you going to complain about that as well as you have to have to interrupt everything? Anyway, I’m out, i think I said everything that I think is important on this topic, at least to me.

Jana.6831:

phys.7689:

No, I think you think pve is more important than it is actually. It isn’t that hard, until you try to solo anything and I think even mesmers solo dungeons.
And well stuff that works on this boss doesn’t have to work on that boss – like I said: you have to adapt – you can’t interrupt a lot of bosses, so are you going to complain about that as well as you have to have to interrupt everything? Anyway, I’m out, i think I said everything that I think is important on this topic, at least to me.

its not about how hard the game is, its about how much fun you have doing it. Being able to do a clutch interupt, or gain swiftness then immediately shove your enemies back with proper timing, is fun cool, exciting. having to wait a second is less exciting, less verstatile, and has less applications.

And when you add up all these type of changes it makes something overall exciting, more lackluster.

old ranger quickness, for you and your pet, essentially combing rampage with quickness and pet gets boon when you get boon trait was like you and your pet going berserk, highly entertaining, but it was op in PVP, no one complained about OP pets/rng combos at the time.

Its not about the bare minimum people need to succeed, its about succeeding with style grace, and entertainment. Sure i can win practically any fight in the game with dodge roll, and the 1 skill if i play right, but no thats not really the point of skill system in the pve game.

phys.7689:

Its not about the bare minimum people need to succeed, its about succeeding with style grace, and entertainment.

++1