Guild Wars 2

Just wondering.

No, only removal of amulets….

I hope so, my warrior has beena lawnmower in the new zone, to the point its boring. I can spin attack and hundred blades through swarms of destroyers, while back in GW1 my warrior needed 7 heroes to get through small groups. ‘Evolved’ destroyers my posterior organ.

Amaimon.7823:

I hope so, my warrior has beena lawnmower in the new zone, to the point its boring. I can spin attack and hundred blades through swarms of destroyers, while back in GW1 my warrior needed 7 heroes to get through small groups. ‘Evolved’ destroyers my posterior organ.

Try with a power necro… It’s like they aren’t even there!

We all have to wait for PvP Season to end…

zell.3051:

Amaimon.7823:

I hope so, my warrior has beena lawnmower in the new zone, to the point its boring. I can spin attack and hundred blades through swarms of destroyers, while back in GW1 my warrior needed 7 heroes to get through small groups. ‘Evolved’ destroyers my posterior organ.

Try with a power necro… It’s like they aren’t even there!

My necro is completely geared for condi-raiding.. Since I can’t save builds I’m kinda reluctant to change things

I think the next quarterly patch should be in october, so hopefully then.

King Cephalopod.7942:

I think the next quarterly patch should be in october, so hopefully then.

I thought they were done with quarterly patches.

Kam.4092:

I thought they were done with quarterly patches.

When did they say this?

Amaimon.7823:

I hope so, my warrior has beena lawnmower in the new zone, to the point its boring. I can spin attack and hundred blades through swarms of destroyers, while back in GW1 my warrior needed 7 heroes to get through small groups. ‘Evolved’ destroyers my posterior organ.

That is because everything at that point in GW1 was balanced for having 8 characters around. Open world trash mobs are definitely not balanced to required groups to do.

Seabreeze.8437:

Kam.4092:

I thought they were done with quarterly patches.

When did they say this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Living-World-Season-Three

My Ele is always falling off JPs so more balance would really be nice!

Skittish.4539:

Seabreeze.8437:

Kam.4092:

I thought they were done with quarterly patches.

When did they say this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Living-World-Season-Three

Oh okay, so Anet is trying to increase the pace of balance updates. The way Kam phrased it I thought he/she was saying that Anet was done doing profession balance updates period, lol. Thanks for the clarification.

Amaimon.7823:

I hope so, my warrior has beena lawnmower in the new zone, to the point its boring. I can spin attack and hundred blades through swarms of destroyers, while back in GW1 my warrior needed 7 heroes to get through small groups. ‘Evolved’ destroyers my posterior organ.

All classes are easy in the open world.

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

You should be a politician.

Or, actually, you shouldn’t – we really don’t need any more of that type of whataboutery.

Imbalance isn’t “interesting”, it’s just bad design.

Tigaseye.2047:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

You should be a politician.

Or, actually, you shouldn’t – we really don’t need any more of that type of whataboutery.

Imbalance isn’t “interesting”, it’s just bad design.

Yes, it would be much more interesting if the winning tactics never changed.

Tigaseye.2047:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

You should be a politician.

Or, actually, you shouldn’t – we really don’t need any more of that type of whataboutery.

Imbalance isn’t “interesting”, it’s just bad design.

If everything is equally good at everything, then why would there be classes in the first place?

on second thought, a complete freedom of style like in elder scrolls games would also be cool. Starting without a ‘class’ and ‘armor weight’ and then specialize in whichever way you want

Tigaseye.2047:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

You should be a politician.

Or, actually, you shouldn’t – we really don’t need any more of that type of whataboutery.

Imbalance isn’t “interesting”, it’s just bad design.

Um, actually…

Amaimon.7823:

Tigaseye.2047:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

You should be a politician.

Or, actually, you shouldn’t – we really don’t need any more of that type of whataboutery.

Imbalance isn’t “interesting”, it’s just bad design.

If everything is equally good at everything, then why would there be classes in the first place?

on second thought, a complete freedom of style like in elder scrolls games would also be cool. Starting without a ‘class’ and ‘armor weight’ and then specialize in whichever way you want

Yes, balancing is a constant game of whack-a-mole and is pretty pointless. If people gravitate towards a certain build so what (especially in something like PVE)? Is it the end of the universe or something? The way it is now there is no point in learning a profession because that skill/trait/weapon you got really good at and rely on may be nerfed at the next balance. Just go into any of the profession forums after a balance changed something and you will find people screaming. Then you have major changes, like the redo of the trait system. I used to love my engineer because I could throw turrets.

Back to the original question though. The next balance change will probably come out in November (or whenever the next part of LS3 is released).

Amaimon.7823:

Tigaseye.2047:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

You should be a politician.

Or, actually, you shouldn’t – we really don’t need any more of that type of whataboutery.

Imbalance isn’t “interesting”, it’s just bad design.

If everything is equally good at everything, then why would there be classes in the first place?

on second thought, a complete freedom of style like in elder scrolls games would also be cool. Starting without a ‘class’ and ‘armor weight’ and then specialize in whichever way you want

Because there will always be a “Most optimal Path”, as Elder Scrolls demonstrates.

The game is imbalanced because it’s impossible to properly balance due to just how many factors there are in play.

Sartharina.3542:

Amaimon.7823:

Tigaseye.2047:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

You should be a politician.

Or, actually, you shouldn’t – we really don’t need any more of that type of whataboutery.

Imbalance isn’t “interesting”, it’s just bad design.

If everything is equally good at everything, then why would there be classes in the first place?

on second thought, a complete freedom of style like in elder scrolls games would also be cool. Starting without a ‘class’ and ‘armor weight’ and then specialize in whichever way you want

Because there will always be a “Most optimal Path”, as Elder Scrolls demonstrates.

The game is imbalanced because it’s impossible to properly balance due to just how many factors there are in play.

Just this. The moment you decide to split the mechanics of different classes into unique aspects balance is already a pipe dream because of all the possible interactions and not enough universal mechanics (such as dodge, to list an example) to give all classes a more solid ground to work with.

My opinion about MMO balance is that imbalance is fine as long as the classes have at least a niche role use that only they can do, so there will always be a reason to take in a party for some specific tasks. Multiple overlapping roles or jack-of-all-trades are bad design and either ends up being underpowered or overpowered for some.

Rauderi.8706:

Tigaseye.2047:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

You should be a politician.

Or, actually, you shouldn’t – we really don’t need any more of that type of whataboutery.

Imbalance isn’t “interesting”, it’s just bad design.

Um, actually…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31OSVZF77w

Was waiting for someone to cite the source on this after EW made the claim. Despite being an excellent video, I believe this is one of the most commonly-misused sources when discussion game mechanics in respects to balance coming from those who are trying to justify a given state of imbalance. The mentality often comes from statements rejecting a need for a balanced game state such as “EC said it doesn’t need to be balanced to be good!” – which is quite the false way of looking at things, particularly in an RPG setting, where character permanency and diversity of styles themselves are important and numerous. The “noob tube” shouldn’t be providing free wins, and shouldn’t be in the upper echelons of performance in high-tier play.

Unfortunately, it’s just plastering a name that came from a professional youtube channel to the state of the game in an attempt to justify the lack of balance and suggest ANet is doing things correctly. Note the distinction of terms used. There is a definitive difference between “imbalance” and “perfect imbalance.”

Thing is, GW2 doesn’t have a case of perfect imbalance, or even close to it. It’s just imbalanced, which creates an environment not too unlike a perfectly-balanced game the more and more it strays from not being balanced; rock paper scissors is a perfectly-balanced game. But in the world of game design, total-luck-based games aren’t actually considered games, because there is no solvable problem within the confines of the game (although this can go into meta-analysis of games via psychology, but that’s tangential). For this reason it’s also imbalanced; a novice has the capacity to win despite all of the criteria for winning being totally out of his control.

Some of the easiest builds in the game (I.E. the “noob tube” analogy used in the video) are still the best ones there are because on the mathematical level they are overpowered. The converse is true with underpowered ones.

The case of GW2 is just straight-up imbalance. It has the same conceptual flaw of perfect balance; the game is kept uninteresting because the efficacy of diverse or new-player-driven builds is so minimal compared to dominant builds and strategies across all tiers of play that the element of diversity and not pure-skill wins which constitutes fun and fresh gameplay for both new and veteran players is not there.

The real means of how to manage imbalance in a diverse game is rapid iteration of changes. Since perfect balance isn’t possible, the best way to make the game seem balanced is to prevent the existence of refinement of optimal strategies. If you change the rules before playing every game of checkers, the fact the game itself is solvable is irrelevant, because nobody will figure out the optima in a reasonable time before the next game starts. This still requires successful balancing efforts, but agrees with the philosophy that perfect balance is impossible, while not simply just settling for less. This is what almost every major competitive game does, and why the games are competitive.

Sartharina.3542:

Because there will always be a “Most optimal Path”, as Elder Scrolls demonstrates.

The game is imbalanced because it’s impossible to properly balance due to just how many factors there are in play.

Ug. Its not impossible to do better. Even if ‘perfection’ is impossible, better balance is better.

And better balance takes the form of reducing the performance gaps between classes and making the “second best” build for each activity 2-3% less than optimal, not 10-17%.

There’s room for improvement and they know it. It’s their job to know it, even if players throw up their hands and wail “alas, there is nothing to be done!”

Nike.2631:

Sartharina.3542:

Because there will always be a “Most optimal Path”, as Elder Scrolls demonstrates.

The game is imbalanced because it’s impossible to properly balance due to just how many factors there are in play.

Ug. Its not impossible to do better. Even if ‘perfection’ is impossible, better balance is better.

And better balance takes the form of reducing the performance gaps between classes and making the “second best” build for each activity 2-3% less than optimal, not 10-17%.

There’s room for improvement and they know it. It’s their job to know it, even if players throw up their hands and wail “alas, there is nothing to be done!”

Quite. The magnitude of difference and the curves of skill : performance alone (not even considering diverse environments) are things which can and always should be looked into further. This correlates to my mentioning above of relative balance; there’s always room for improvement in an imperfect system.

.000001 cm and .0000005 cm are very minute differences in length for our everyday purposes. However, that tolerance can mean an absolutely massive amount in the field of astrophysics. While we all know our understanding of measurement indicates infinitely-small increments, that push for measuring the next “half” accurately is massive and should always be pursued, since such shifts in tolerances could wildly affect previous and future hypotheses.

DeceiverX.8361:

…snip… Thing is, GW2 doesn’t have a case of perfect imbalance, or even close to it. It’s just imbalanced, …snippity-snip

Evidence? o.O

Seriously… you and so many others will either make sweeping claims of imbalance and never point to specifics, OR when things are pointed at they’re so obviously subjective that it’s not evidence. I know that’s a sweeping claim I just made, but of all the balance complaint threads I’ve read I have yet to be convinced by anyone that what they’re claiming is imbalanced actually is imbalanced. Most often it’s something that doesn’t work for how they want to play, and that’s the real reason for the cry of imbalance.

So, again I ask you or anyone else for concrete evidence of the horrible game-destroying imbalance that I’m apparently blind to. I’m willing to read such a wall of text as that would require. I’d bet ANet’s Balance Team would also be interested in such evidence.

~EW

EphemeralWallaby.7643, go play other esl games and gw1 and then come to see how much players are being carried by just follow the best gimmicks.

Gw2 is know to be awfull pvp game u migh like to start with that.
Tons of aoe+cleaves spam, poor trade offs etc…

“Dear ANet: Plz nerf Rock, Paper is ok.”
-Scissors

In a word: No. No game will ever be balanced as long as people play it. Someone will eventually figure out how to break it, gain advantage, and “win” at it. Developers can try, certainly. They can realign certain combinations and interactions, generate rules to curtail deliberate misinterpretation, but ultimately, something will become the de facto “best” way to do things. Then people figure out what to use to beat the best, then that becomes the best, rinse, repeat ad nauseam. Keeping that flux in flux, moving and dynamic, makes a healthy metagame. That’s the best humans ever could do for other humans.

Check EVERY MMO forums – same exact type of issues. Class/game imbalanced, nerf this, PvP sucks this game, etc. Even a game like Blade and soul has constant whining for PvP. This isn’t League of Legends.

Anyways; I just want some quicker updates; quarterly in this game is slow; because anet has a big update/class “balance” and screws meta or a class out of it, when just a few tweaks can fix things but no – gotta wait 4 months. One of my few major gripes for the game. Granted, there are stuff like Fractal boon thieving that was fixed, which fixed a class like Guardian in Fractals; I honestly thought it’d not be addressed until quarterly.

Anyways; esp PvP slanted balance which is what most ppl complain about there’s never gonna be balance. But more balancing can happen aka more updates with class tweaks not just one massive meta shift a few times a year. W00t.

Aeolus.3615:

EphemeralWallaby.7643, go play other esl games and gw1 and then come to see how much players are being carried by just follow the best gimmicks.

Not good enough. If you can’t demonstrate imbalance within the confines of the game itself, then you certainly can’t by comparing other games with widely different mechanics.

Aeolus.3615:

Gw2 is know to be awfull pvp game u migh like to start with that.
Tons of aoe+cleaves spam, poor trade offs etc…

Again, not good enough. “Gw2 is know to be awfull pvp game,” doesn’t say why. There are many possible reasons why the PvP of a game isn’t popular beyond the nebulous concept of balance. It also doesn’t address the other facets of the game such as WvW and PvE. Your brief reason of, “Tons of aoe+cleaves spam, poor trade offs etc…” can be easily attributed to popularity, meta, misunderstanding of mechanics, or even perfect imbalance (and possibly other things I’m not thinking of).

If you are convinced that the game is imbalanced beyond the scope of perfect imbalance, then you need to be able to clearly argue why. Otherwise you’re just riding an irrational bandwagon.

~EW

Amaimon.7823:

I hope so, my warrior has beena lawnmower in the new zone, to the point its boring. I can spin attack and hundred blades through swarms of destroyers, while back in GW1 my warrior needed 7 heroes to get through small groups. ‘Evolved’ destroyers my posterior organ.

No because people will complain that the game is too hard and they have to group up to kill one mob.

now if you had NPC’s you could group with like you could in GW1, then maybe you’d have a point with the comparison.

you will never get perfect balance because it contradicts the other demand we as customers give – we want a large diversity of skills and combinations, and we want things to evolve over time. What you can however look for is a dev team that is responsive to current serious balancing issues and to continue to triage over time as change happens. What GW2 has over every other mmorpg is that there is a power cap, so we gain more scope for diversity while those other games are trapped in a cycle of ever increasing power and a pressure to limit skill combinations so to be manageable (at the cost of play-ability)

Aeolus.3615:

EphemeralWallaby.7643, go play other esl games and gw1 and then come to see how much players are being carried by just follow the best gimmicks.

Gw2 is know to be awfull pvp game u migh like to start with that.
Tons of aoe+cleaves spam, poor trade offs etc…

Ummm are you serious about gw1? They had flavor of the month overpowered builds for PvP and PvE all through that game. Touch Ranger, 55 Monk as a couple of examples. For my PvE play I used a Necro/Rit build on my heroes that slaughtered the mobs we went through.

DeceiverX.8361:

Thing is, GW2 doesn’t have a case of perfect imbalance, or even close to it. It’s just imbalanced.

And there’s the 1,000,000 gold piece statement.

We can banter about skill cap differentials, talent synergy, risk-reward, and “incomparables”, but as it stands, GW2 weapon skills and talent lines are still littered with things that range from:

• questionably-useless chaff
• combination potential that leads to “the one good build” (coughFGPScough)
• “that PvP-only talent” which is mostly useless in PvE (and vice versa)

Rauderi.8706:

Tigaseye.2047:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

You should be a politician.

Or, actually, you shouldn’t – we really don’t need any more of that type of whataboutery.

Imbalance isn’t “interesting”, it’s just bad design.

Um, actually…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31OSVZF77w

Wow… That cyclical imbalance pretty much sums up PvP balancing in this game… Really makes me wish they’d separate skills for the different game formats even more though.

TheFantasticGuy.7206:

Rauderi.8706:

Tigaseye.2047:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

You should be a politician.

Or, actually, you shouldn’t – we really don’t need any more of that type of whataboutery.

Imbalance isn’t “interesting”, it’s just bad design.

Um, actually…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31OSVZF77w

Wow… That cyclical imbalance pretty much sums up PvP balancing in this game… Really makes me wish they’d separate skills for the different game formats even more though.

I really wish they would, I thought they had a new way of doing it now though? I doubt anyone likes getting a nerf because of something that was relevant to another game mode that they do not play.

Balance so everyone is the same is pointless. Why not just have one profession, one set of weapons, one set of armor, and one set of traits/skills then? Fashion wars is what it is all about after all! If one build is better than another, so what? Everyone can use the same build so it does not carry any real advantages except for observers of a match that want to see different professions out there.

Anet’s mistake was not totally separating PvP actions, durations, CDs, skills from those in PvE. Soloing the living story was a nightmare for my mesmer (main) while my warrior rofl-stomped her way through with ease grabbing the achievements as a no-brainer.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Aeolus.3615:

EphemeralWallaby.7643, go play other esl games and gw1 and then come to see how much players are being carried by just follow the best gimmicks.

Gw2 is know to be awfull pvp game u migh like to start with that.
Tons of aoe+cleaves spam, poor trade offs etc…

Ummm are you serious about gw1? They had flavor of the month overpowered builds for PvP and PvE all through that game. Touch Ranger, 55 Monk as a couple of examples. For my PvE play I used a Necro/Rit build on my heroes that slaughtered the mobs we went through.

Seriously… 55hp monk was only for mob farm…. if Anet wanted to kill that build they could do it…. and a simple rend echantments would kill any guy who tried to bring that crap to pvp, monks could even have spell breaker, but would end be ignored and killed after SB effect…
ABout Ranger well, ive won some R/Ngroup spike gvg’s, was a bit broken but only supper effective against low rank guilds, still was needed more skill and team organization that gw2 needs, the timings were important.
The issue with gw2 is that the metas are not hard to pull, thus not much skill is needed (wins who finds the best effective gimmick, imo that is unskilled), all that is needed is high damage, if aoe the better, being whatever game mode is.
Every one does alot of damage, while on spvp some classes are in need of certain stats that are missing, it is a matter of burst or be bursted die and repeat, class roles gets ignored, poor tactics on class select etc.
Oh… and the gap between metas from gw1 and gw2, metas on gw2 are easy to pull and much more efective, but that is what gw2 is about, carry players, i do feel carried when playing some builds, still i hate it.

Aeolus.3615:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Aeolus.3615:

EphemeralWallaby.7643, go play other esl games and gw1 and then come to see how much players are being carried by just follow the best gimmicks.

Gw2 is know to be awfull pvp game u migh like to start with that.
Tons of aoe+cleaves spam, poor trade offs etc…

Ummm are you serious about gw1? They had flavor of the month overpowered builds for PvP and PvE all through that game. Touch Ranger, 55 Monk as a couple of examples. For my PvE play I used a Necro/Rit build on my heroes that slaughtered the mobs we went through.

Seriously… 55hp monk was only for mob farm…. if Anet wanted to kill that build they could do it…. and a simple rend echantments would kill any guy who tried to bring that crap to pvp, monks could even have spell breaker, but would end be ignored and killed after SB effect…
ABout Ranger well, ive won some R/Ngroup spike gvg’s, was a bit broken but only supper effective against low rank guilds, still was needed more skill and team organization that gw2 needs, the timings were important.
The issue with gw2 is that the metas are not hard to pull, thus not much skill is needed (wins who finds the best effective gimmick, imo that is unskilled), all that is needed is high damage, if aoe the better, being whatever game mode is.
Every one does alot of damage, while on spvp some classes are in need of certain stats that are missing, it is a matter of burst or be bursted die and repeat, class roles gets ignored, poor tactics on class select etc.
Oh… and the gap between metas from gw1 and gw2, metas on gw2 are easy to pull and much more efective, but that is what gw2 is about, carry players, i do feel carried when playing some builds, still i hate it.

Seriously… 55hp monk was only for mob farm
I did say PvE and PvP…..

It’s been 4 years and I wasn’t into PvP but even I heard about all the OP flavor of the month builds that would hit the PvP scene and how ANet had to nerf skills to uselessness to counter them so saying that gw1 didn’t have OP builds back then is wearing rose colored goggles. Both games have OP and flavor of the month builds. Just how they are OP is different.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Aeolus.3615:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Aeolus.3615:

EphemeralWallaby.7643, go play other esl games and gw1 and then come to see how much players are being carried by just follow the best gimmicks.

Gw2 is know to be awfull pvp game u migh like to start with that.
Tons of aoe+cleaves spam, poor trade offs etc…

Ummm are you serious about gw1? They had flavor of the month overpowered builds for PvP and PvE all through that game. Touch Ranger, 55 Monk as a couple of examples. For my PvE play I used a Necro/Rit build on my heroes that slaughtered the mobs we went through.

Seriously… 55hp monk was only for mob farm…. if Anet wanted to kill that build they could do it…. and a simple rend echantments would kill any guy who tried to bring that crap to pvp, monks could even have spell breaker, but would end be ignored and killed after SB effect…
About Ranger well, ive won some * R/Ngroup spike gvg’s, was a bit broken * but only supper effective against low rank guilds, still was needed more skill and team organization that gw2 needs, the timings were important.
The issue with gw2 is that the metas are not hard to pull, thus not much skill is needed (wins who finds the best effective gimmick, imo that is unskilled), all that is needed is high damage, if aoe the better, being whatever game mode is.
Every one does alot of damage, while on spvp some classes are in need of certain stats that are missing, it is a matter of burst or be bursted die and repeat, class roles gets ignored, poor tactics on class select etc.
Oh… and the gap between metas from gw1 and gw2, metas on gw2 are easy to pull and much more efective, but that is what gw2 is about, carry players, i do feel carried when playing some builds, still i hate it.

Seriously… 55hp monk was only for mob farm
I did say PvE and PvP…..

It’s been 4 years and I wasn’t into PvP but even I heard about all the OP flavor of the month builds that would hit the PvP scene and how ANet had to nerf skills to uselessness to counter them so saying that gw1 didn’t have OP builds back then is wearing rose colored goggles. Both games have OP and flavor of the month builds. Just how they are OP is different.

Funny i just said that gw1 had to strong builds…..i didnt disagree with that.
Still there was far broken builds thatn R/N spike team.

Echo inovkers were deadly than those(more damage and longer range) R/N, still they had its counters, harder to pull counters, but not compared with what we have on gw2, its like every one is playing who spams more damage output that games loosed the team gameplay.
On gw2 u have to much unskilled gameplay due alot of classes have cleaves, aoes, high damage on a very week CD management even on this game the CD management is easier, that the game becomes to messy to flashy, to be observed. and imo to easy.

Skittish.4539:

Tigaseye.2047:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

You should be a politician.

Or, actually, you shouldn’t – we really don’t need any more of that type of whataboutery.

Imbalance isn’t “interesting”, it’s just bad design.

Yes, it would be much more interesting if the winning tactics never changed.

Rampant sarcasm, on a games forum?

Surely not!

I said nothing about winning tactics never changing.

You can (or should be able to) change things, without upsetting overall balance.

Of course, it’s not easy and that is why they don’t do it.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

DeceiverX.8361:

…snip… Thing is, GW2 doesn’t have a case of perfect imbalance, or even close to it. It’s just imbalanced, …snippity-snip

Evidence? o.O

Seriously… you and so many others will either make sweeping claims of imbalance and never point to specifics, OR when things are pointed at they’re so obviously subjective that it’s not evidence. I know that’s a sweeping claim I just made, but of all the balance complaint threads I’ve read I have yet to be convinced by anyone that what they’re claiming is imbalanced actually is imbalanced. Most often it’s something that doesn’t work for how they want to play, and that’s the real reason for the cry of imbalance.

So, again I ask you or anyone else for concrete evidence of the horrible game-destroying imbalance that I’m apparently blind to. I’m willing to read such a wall of text as that would require. I’d bet ANet’s Balance Team would also be interested in such evidence.

~EW

“So the next time you see players crying in a forum for same game element to get nerfed, wait a few weeks and see what happens. Did the development team actually have to go in and change things in a patch? Or have the players moved on and started demanding a different element be nerfed? If it’s the latter, you’ve probably just seen a case of perfect imbalance taking its course. If it’s the former, w-well, the players were probably right and something really was broken.”

Now tell me, how much have you seen top-tier builds across all the formats stayed dominant, and for how long?

For PvE, have we seen any shifts to this meta since the release of HoT? Not really. The top profession lists are still top profession lists by far and large. This is of course the easiest problem to solve since the gameplay mechanisms that only really matter here are ones bumping up damage. Do recalculations every patch in a big spreadsheet and you have the answer already.

For sPvP, how long since HoT have we seen the dominance of only a few select professions and compositions make up for the backbone behind many teams? Not much has changed build-wise since HoT, and nothing has changed philosophy-wise since probably 2013.

For WvW, how come the meta only ever changes in both small and large-scale once major nerfs and reworks happen which upset the comp synergy between groups? Over four years, there have been three unanswered strategies for large-scale: hammertrain, Pirate ship, and boonshare with a mixture of both. All of them had no counters until the game saw massive profession changes. It’s gotten more difficult to deal with each meta-iteration, too. WvW small-scale was actually very balanced until condition dominance with the condition reworks breaking dire condi builds (another developer-made change) HoT broke the game more with unkillable builds, increases in stats disproportional to other sets and their shortcomings, and removing many prior small-weaknesses of classes/builds in the prior slightly-cyclically-perfectly-balanced game mode. There has never been an evolution of WvW roaming pretty much since near after the game’s inception. All changes are almost entirely patch-generated.

Because like the quote (from the same video) says, a case where the meta doesn’t move rapidly implies just imbalance due to the problem of the game being solved, not perfect imbalance representing only the popular sub-problem.

Rauderi.8706:

Tigaseye.2047:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

You should be a politician.

Or, actually, you shouldn’t – we really don’t need any more of that type of whataboutery.

Imbalance isn’t “interesting”, it’s just bad design.

Um, actually…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31OSVZF77w

Unfortunately, Anet does not follow the perfect imbalance concept at all, in any of the game modes. This is because it is always the same builds that rotate in and out of meta. They simply pay no attention to useless skills and traits, that could keep the game interesting, by causing players to experiment.

You could argue that they are going for cyclical imbalance, but that simply requires an enormous amount of characters or builds that are somewhat close to viable, if the game is to remain interesting.

Ganathar.4956:

They simply pay no attention to useless skills and traits, that could keep the game interesting, by causing players to experiment.
.

Yes, they do, though not as much as they should. The one thing that made guardians to from terrible to “please nerf them, mama Anet” in PVP were reworks to scepter and sword, for example.

There will never be balance in this game as long:

1___) Anet doesn’t finally split the Skill Effects between PvP & PvE/WvW
2___) ANet doesn’t finally rework the Game’s Health System and removes the obsolete splitting between Class types and starts finally balancing Health individually for each Class, so that Maximum Base Health becomes finally an important factor in Class Balancing, where other Classes don’t get punished anymore for it for being put together with other Classes sharing the same Base Health Values
3___) Anet doesn’t rework the Condition & Boon System completely, especially the Conditions as they are completely out of control for over a whole year now and ANet has done NOTHING against that
4___) ANet doesn’t rework the Attribute System by turning it into a Dual Effect System, which can provide more and better Attribute Synergies, especially for defensive gameplay by addign throuigh this important defensive gameplay mechanisms, which don’t exist, but should have existed from begin on, like an Attribute Effect, which can decrease the chance to receive Critical Hits, like an Attribute Effect, which improves your Endurance Regeneration.. these things should be influenceable via Attributes as well, not only through Conditions and Boons.
Certain Attributes need to get merged finally and fixed, like for example Vitality/Healing Power and Toughness, so that you finally see some significant damage reductions from Toughness – currently this attribute feels like being non existant, even if you have it basically to the max, you receive liekcbasicalyl felt the exact same damage, as if you’d have no defense at all. Why? because the crazy out of control conditions all IGNORE defense by 100% which is as crazy as like it is idiotical for game balance, because there exists also no attribute way with that you can reduce at least the condition durations you suffer on, you can influence this only via Buff items or your equipment… the whole attribute system is just an incomplete thought out mess and that since game release and ANet has done nothing about that for 4 years..the game has now soo much power creep, because the games combat system is still using game mechanics that were never designed around all this power creep that got added through the changes in the condition power and the adding of the Elite Specs. You can’t change just such things, while ignoring to adapt the combat system mechanics that play a huge role in the overall game balanc,e like reworking as neccessary the Attribute System or the Condition and Boon System accordingly to bring these things together with the Base Health System again onto a same level, so that offensive and defensive gameplay mechanics are again on an equal field of power.
But currently its more like a 70/30 or 80/20 relationship favoring always offensive over defensive gameplay, because Anet never did anything for the defensive gameplay until now, which you can perfectly see in the current cancerous Condi Meta
5___)Anet rebalanced the Elite Specializations 1st Generation to be lesser powerful of certain classes, so that using them doesn’t become anymore mandatory to stay viable in the game as a class to be able to survive in the game, while other classes are even with their Elite Specs still currently absolutely underpowered due to may too much thigns under their traits being messed up and useless (Thief, Ranger), which is the reason, why Raids cause so much class discrimination, whne not all classes can provide something thats useful enough to take them with you, as long there are overpowered other elite spcs which overshadow certain other classes by so much, that you have basically no chance to get into raid groups with your class, as long there is somethign else, which is like felt times 3x more useful than you due to providing far more group support than you while still dishign out the same damage as you or even more… whiel you have basically no group support that is for raids useful at all..

And as long raids have this idiotic timer mechanic that makes bosses do 1hit kills if you aren’t fast enough, the hunt after perfect group DPS and class discrimination will stay. The Raid feature absolutely needs to get overworked more to make it more accessible for players, but thats an other topic and hasn’t directly something to do now with game/class balance.

If ANet could fix finally these points, they create for the game finally at least a good foundation from that they would be able to build up the next coming elite specs.
But as long the game/class balancement is under such a chaos, I think its best to keep the second generation of E-Specs as lonng as possible away from the game as long the game still uses cobmat system mechanics and systems that are still designed and balanced around a game from 2012, which by far hadn’t had at that time all this power creep, that the game has now 2016 four years later.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Ganathar.4956:

They simply pay no attention to useless skills and traits, that could keep the game interesting, by causing players to experiment.
.

Yes, they do, though not as much as they should. The one thing that made guardians to from terrible to “please nerf them, mama Anet” in PVP were reworks to scepter and sword, for example.

It certainly doesn’t feel that way, because the only changes that make non-meta stuff viable seem to be reworks for a couple of weapons of a single profession every 6 months or so. Within a 6 month period all non-viable weapons should have had significant changes. To be fair, they have tried with ele scepter a bit, but it hasn’t been near a rework. The skills are still as sluggish as ever, and no matter how much they buff the skills, it will never be good in competetive play if they don’t speed them up.