We all talk about balance in PvP, but what about PvE?
What direction of balance changes would you make so that there is a high diversity of viable builds.
A lot.
However too many people would get angry at the power creep if i listed even half of what i think about.
They merged too many traits into one so now some traits are clearly superior OP and the rest suck. I’d probably reshuffle stuff so that there’s an actual choice required in traits (payoff/result etc) rather than just pick the one with 4 different good things bundled in.
There’s no way to have a high diversity of good builds if some traits are clearly OP. Either nerf some of them to be in line with the rest, or rework the bad traits into something people might actually pick.
i’d balance by looking at pvp.
class balance is how the classes compare and work w/ each other… how they “balance” each other out.
only way to do that is in pvp… where u have classes compared to each other
We all talk about balance in PvP, but what about PvE?
What direction of balance changes would you make so that there is a high diversity of viable builds.
Talking from a PvE aspect only. Ignoring PvP and WvW(just like Anet, amirite!)
IMO – Balance is like a scale with damage on one side and survive-ability on the other. The more damage you can deal, the squishier you need to be. The more stout you are, the lower your damage should be. To throw a third aspect to that would be utility somewhere in the middle. A class who’s damage is mediocre but provides a vital party buff.
I think PvE balance is a hard concept because of the lack of a true trinity in this game. Which I would kill for, but that is just my opinion, I know many people hate it. It is very hard to balance all these classes that can fill so many roles in so many ways.
I think they biggest thing that holds true PvE balance back is how dependent on not breaking PvP it is. You could EASILY adjust the damage to classes up(with the right spec and gear) to meet tempest, which would make them more desirable in raids and dungeons. However that might screw PvP. You could make warriors or guardians the go to heavy armor tank for dungeons and raids. However, it would screw up PvP.
I also think that open world PvE in core tyria is so easy that balance is pointless. Do whatever you want. Dungeons and Raids. Those are things made for a trinity.
TL;DR – I don’t think you can truly “balance” PvE without separating it from PvP.
In PvE you fight against monsters instead of players. Monssters are therefore an important variable of the balance. This provides more screws you can adjust to assure build variety.
First you have the monsters per se. First fight against a group of destroyers then fight against a group of husks. Both groups would encourage the use of a different build. Facing a group of monsters with break bars favors another build.
Then we have events or encounters. On this field the tasks and mechanics determine the builds. Do you have to kill targets? Do you have to control them? Do you have to protect and heal targets? Do you have to cleanse conditions or to corrupt boons? Different tasks will require different builds.
The devs have to create a high variety in monsters and events when it comes to PvE. They have much more freedom on this field since monsters are not strictly tied to classes . But often devs do not use this freedom to a satisfying extent..
Some imbalances are not removeable by simple number tweaking. Here is the introduction of a new elite specialisation the better way. You could buff the healing capacity of necromancers to the level of druids by buffing blood magic (like stronger siphoning). But this would cause other imbalances. Therefore a healing/defensive support focussed elite specialisation would be more elegant.
(edited by Belenwyn.8674)
Personally, I’d say that the average MOBs should be tuned to be about on par with someone running with white gear, and no traits. Say, three on one, in the monsters’ favor, against normal MOBs.
Now, I know this makes the player sound overpowered, but hear me out. First of all, we are supposed to be playing heroes making their legend. Is taking down three bandits at once legendary? Is six? No, but it’s heroic. How about twenty at once? Now you’re getting somewhere. Fifty? Yeah, that’s a story that’s going to be told and retold. Even if you die during that 1 vs 50 fight, if you give a good enough showing then that’s the stuff of legend.
We’re supposed to be big kittened heroes, and the game should reflect this. Mordremoth should be aware of our movements by the impressive trail of dead minions we leave behind, the huge gap we leave in his forces as we pass through. Instead, we’re left wondering why he doesn’t just send out a small squad of his better troops and wipe us off the map. If the Dragon of Mind spent one minute thinking about us before it’s too late, we’d never live long enough to get near him.
The challenge should be presented in the numbers of minions, not just by making them stronger. Only really big, unique threats like Mordy and Teq should be overwhelmingly powerful. We are the heroes of this story, with the strength and skills to make ourselves legend. Right?
[Edit] As to the classes themselves? Why do they need to be balanced in PvE? So some have a harder time than others, so what? As long as they all have advantages to make up for disadvantages in other areas, it doesn’t all have to equate to straight balance.
As to the classes themselves? Why do they need to be balanced in PvE? So some have a harder time than others, so what? As long as they all have advantages to make up for disadvantages in other areas, it doesn’t all have to equate to straight balance.
I agree. The only time I think class balance is really needed in PvE content is group content. Especially harder stuff like raids.
It’s not a really class issue. You just stack damage. The two biggest changes in HoT were break bars and condi damage being more relevant. So now you still stack damage, but you also stand your utiliies with CC for the break bar, because it’s such an important mechanic in PvE now.
Outside of that, most of the four maps in HoT are just more escort missions with monsters that just do a lot more damage. The overall AI remains the same. As a result, I haven’t felt a need to change any of my stat prefixes in my gear in any of the characters I play, because all that really high damage can be handled by dodging and understanding the very simple AI mechanics.
The mobs that have such OPed mechanics that they can’t be handled, like Champion Bladedancers and Shadowleapers, aren’t worth gearing defensively, because they are just won by attrition. Whether you have low damage and high survivability or high damage and low survivability, it doesn’t matter. Those mobs target a single player and put so much damage pressure on them that they eventually drop. The group revives them and you rinse and repeat until they die.
Raids added a need for other roles besides damage by creating a healer and tank role in a game that wasn’t designed for either, but since they are a small percentage of content, I would argue they added more imbalance than balance.
Like okay, I want to be a tank or a healer and I invest money into building up the gear for that. What else am I am going to do with that gear when I am not doing the raid? Nothing, because none of the other content warrants it. The only place I can think of where healers provide actual strategic value is the zerg rotation stragety in DS, because you can’t stop to revive players and can’t just win by attrittion and healing people to prevent from going into downed state actually makes a difference.
Like, in a game, where there is no specific class roles, all classes have the ability to self-sustain and a revival mechanic, nothing is ever going to be needed besides damage. Heal people? Why? They down, everyone revives, you rinse and repeat until the open world boss dies. With that, all that matters to class balance is they all have, at least, one build that does competitive DPS.
The quickest way to combat the zerker meta is just to get rid of revive. No dropping; you die; you don’t collect $200 and you go straight to jail. That results in a realistic loss of DPS in the group as a whole, because of the time it takes to revive someone from death or the time they spend running back from a waypoint. That creates a scenario where having dedicated healers who can prevent that from happening has value.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
How would I balance classes in PvE? I’d stop basing my decisions on the complaints and comments from players in PvP. When the mordrem complain we’re killing them too easily, come back and talk to us.
My only complaint, and likely feeding the powercreep issue, is the design discrepancy of the specializations.
One one hand, you have classes that only gain from their elite-spec:
- Warrior F2
- Thief Dodge role
- Elementalist overloading attunements
- Mesmer F5
- Revenant F2
- Engineer Gyro (distance rally/stomp)
while the other two (Dragonhunter and Reaper) trade existing power.
- Necromancer gets whole new shroud, not two different/exchangeable shrouds like the Guardian gets new Virtues but cannot exchange for the old ones (While the new ones, in some cases, are much better though).
i’d balance by looking at pvp.
class balance is how the classes compare and work w/ each other… how they “balance” each other out.
only way to do that is in pvp… where u have classes compared to each other
PVP and PVE balance are entirely different things, one of the things many PVEers like me loathe about MMOs is that usually the devs. balance the PVP side due to the endless complaints from PVPers and the result is usually detrimental to the PVE side of the game.
GW2 has been no different and I expect it sadly to remain so.
I wouldn’t balance classes in PvE or in PvP.
If I was the one making the rules at Arena Net, I would balance the whole game around Roaming WvW, then apply that to all the game modes, and control the zerging and stacking through zone penalties for more than 5 people cramped too close.
My only complaint, and likely feeding the powercreep issue, is the design discrepancy of the specializations.
One one hand, you have classes that only gain from their elite-spec:
- Warrior F2
- Thief Dodge role
- Elementalist overloading attunements
- Mesmer F5
- Revenant F2
- Engineer Gyro (distance rally/stomp)while the other two (Dragonhunter and Reaper) trade existing power.
- Necromancer gets whole new shroud, not two different/exchangeable shrouds like the Guardian gets new Virtues but cannot exchange for the old ones (While the new ones, in some cases, are much better though).
Idk about Dragonhunter, F1 is the only one thats really changed. F2 still has AoE heal on top of the leap and the heal being stronger, F3 still has AoE Aegis on top of the shield.
We all talk about balance in PvP, but what about PvE?
What direction of balance changes would you make so that there is a high diversity of viable builds.
balance is only required in competitive pvp. As for non-competitive pvp, you don’t need balance, you just need fun builds and to ‘untrain’ those that have been weaned on power kitten games like wow to learn that its ok to not have ‘max dps’, its all about group diversity and fun battles rather than reward x per hour. Losing is ok if it was fun!
what any mmorpg developer needs to focus on is how to disincentives class stacking through effective counter building, which is different from balance, its paper stone scissor x on steroids.
See Eve for this model.
(edited by vesica tempestas.1563)
How would I balance classes in PvE? I’d stop basing my decisions on the complaints and comments from players in PvP. When the mordrem complain we’re killing them too easily, come back and talk to us.
So, what decision do you want to make? This isn’t the pvp forums.
PvE and PvP gets split completely, how would you balance PvE so that there is more build diversity?
If you go into the different class forums, you’ll find an inordinate amount of suggestions that tackle your question.
As for me, most of what I do is explore build diversity… I find it a ton of fun (and a worthwhile gold sink). So, I’m a person who’s mostly content with the way things are. People latching onto a ‘meta’ or a few select builds is a people problem… if it is a problem at all.
~EW
(edited by EphemeralWallaby.7643)
I would push for more equally, or near equally good build for each profession. For PvE, I currently see 4 type of build.
Direct Damage, Condition, Healers and Tank.
The last 2 are only for raids. And you also have some secondary role like CC, Active Defense and such, which can be brought and someone using any of those big build familly. You can be bring protection and aegis with a DH, that you are a Hammer DPS or a Hammer Tank for exemple.
So for exemple, I would put emphasis on build like Condi Mesmer or Healer Guardian and such. Add some build diversity.
There is inconsistency too. For exemple, engineer in both condi and direct damage have a hard rotation to reach their max dps. So they should be near the top of the DPS chart. Or profession like Thieves, which have limited support and low survivability should be high on the list.
I would limit the amount of Auto-attack build. They did it for Revenant (but they broke some stuff at the same time), they should do it with the Guardian and Thief. The guardian hammer build should need to use their skill 2 in their rotation at least to reach max dps and the difficult of the rotation should be to use 2 without breaking their auto-attack chain. The Thief, should have more emphasis on the backstab. A thief succeeding all of this backstab should be way superior than a thief just auto-attacking. Right now, someone doing their backstab correctly will only do about 10% more dps than someone just pressing 1.
Just get rid of armor classes.
All armor should provide the same defense.
Instead armor types should be geared towards a theme.
Old light armor could give increase condition damage by 1% per piece.
Old medium armor could improve precision.
Old heavy armor could improve vitality.
Easy peasy.
If you go into the different class forums, you’ll find an inordinate amount of suggestions that tackle your question.
As for me, most of what I do is explore build diversity… I find it a ton of fun (and a worthwhile gold sink). So, I’m a person who’s mostly content with the way things are. People latching onto a ‘meta’ or a few select builds is a people problem… if it is a problem at all.
~EW
Most of them are about PvP.
Just get rid of armor classes.
All armor should provide the same defense.
Instead armor types should be geared towards a theme.
Old light armor could give increase condition damage by 1% per piece.
Old medium armor could improve precision.
Old heavy armor could improve vitality.Easy peasy.
The problem with this is that Heavy classes would be kicked out of groups so that it’ll be a medium + light armor party only. Vitality is a pretty useless stat for pve.
Most of them are about PvP.
I disagree. I’ve read many about WvW and PvE… they just don’t necessarily get the frequent fervent responses the PvP ones do.
One example obviously doesn’t prove my point, but there’s a couple threads by TheBravery right now which go into great detail about balance for Guards and Warriors in all 3 game modes… Gaile has even given it encouragement.
~EW
Just get rid of armor classes.
All armor should provide the same defense.
Instead armor types should be geared towards a theme.
Old light armor could give increase condition damage by 1% per piece.
Old medium armor could improve precision.
Old heavy armor could improve vitality.Easy peasy.
The problem with this is that Heavy classes would be kicked out of groups so that it’ll be a medium + light armor party only. Vitality is a pretty useless stat for pve.
There are no “heavy classes” because all armor has the same defense rating. People would just take less or more defense but it isn’t tied to Class, just player choice.
To clearly explain a warrior can wear light armor, medium, or heavy. So can the elementalist. The armor doesn’t need removal or even overhaul, just make it accessible to all classes.
(edited by DGraves.3720)
Just get rid of armor classes.
All armor should provide the same defense.
Instead armor types should be geared towards a theme.
Old light armor could give increase condition damage by 1% per piece.
Old medium armor could improve precision.
Old heavy armor could improve vitality.Easy peasy.
The problem with this is that Heavy classes would be kicked out of groups so that it’ll be a medium + light armor party only. Vitality is a pretty useless stat for pve.
There are no “heavy classes” because all armor has the same defense rating. People would just take less or more defense but it isn’t tied to Class, just player choice.
To clearly explain a warrior can wear light armor, medium, or heavy. So can the elementalist. The armor doesn’t need removal or even overhaul, just make it accessible to all classes.
Then I rather get rid of your precision/condi damage/vitality suggestion for each armor types.
I want to wear what I want. I do not want armor types to determine my appearance. Keep the armor types cosmetic only.
Just remove the classes and make the game like a FPS. Make 1 offensive armor set, 1 defensive armor set, and 1 hybrid armor set. Stats on all three are fixed (i.e. Only three stat combos total between the three). There… 100% balanced. Everyone is now the same.
And no, I’m not seriously suggesting this.
(edited by Ayrilana.1396)
Just get rid of armor classes.
All armor should provide the same defense.
Instead armor types should be geared towards a theme.
Old light armor could give increase condition damage by 1% per piece.
Old medium armor could improve precision.
Old heavy armor could improve vitality.Easy peasy.
The problem with this is that Heavy classes would be kicked out of groups so that it’ll be a medium + light armor party only. Vitality is a pretty useless stat for pve.
There are no “heavy classes” because all armor has the same defense rating. People would just take less or more defense but it isn’t tied to Class, just player choice.
To clearly explain a warrior can wear light armor, medium, or heavy. So can the elementalist. The armor doesn’t need removal or even overhaul, just make it accessible to all classes.
Then I rather get rid of your precision/condi damage/vitality suggestion for each armor types.
I want to wear what I want. I do not want armor types to determine my appearance. Keep the armor types cosmetic only.
Can’t. Incentives are required to stop everyone from just wearing heavy armor. Or that could just be the baseline.
This has nothing to do with skins.
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