Guild Wars 2

Question for the community:

3 months are ok the amount of changes these balance patches contain?

RlyOsim.2497:

Question for the community:

3 months are ok the amount of changes these balance patches contain?

To answer you frankly, All the changes in the quarterly patches can be done in 1-2 months tops.

Waiting for 3-4 months for basic changes (there is not even a lot of trait/skills changes/reworks) is utter…………

I wish they use this mid-season gap to further improve on some underused traits and skills (I can think of at least 5 from each class). There should be plenty of time to achieve that in this “extended off-season”. But I’m already at a point where I don’t care much about it. You don’t get disappointed if you don’t expect much.

The last patch was OK but this all three Month is not enough. There is not much hope to get diversity back at this patch speed. especially off season there should be a lot of small changes(tweaks/buffs to underwheming things) at least with the patches every two weeks. I understand not to mess around during season.

Of course not, but sadly I can’t see it changing.

I’m not expecting any huge changes anymore other than on the release of new expansions.

Three months is fine but I’d expect more out of the balance updates.

Most competitive sPvP games make end of season, off season, beginning of season, and some mid season balancing patches. They do this so skills, classes/characters, and items are not completely broken for a long period of time if they need to be fixed.

The way GW2 do balancing patches only every 3 months is pretty standard for MMOs these days. But imo it also puts another roadblock in GW2 drive for being able to cross into mainstream competitive/eSports scene.

Me personally, I’d like to see balancing patches once of month at at least. Tho this looks more of a pipe dream.

They seem to be in maintenance mode now, not changing much for fear of breaking the game, and hoping the playerbase doesn’t quit before the xpac.

At this point, the frequency of balance patches doesn’t matter. ANet is unwilling to make actual balance balance changes to reign in the heinous amounts of power creep which HoT introduced.

Considering how little is actually balanced each patch (so many underused, underpowered skills and traits on every class still, so many clearly OP skills still), we should be getting a balance patch every 3-4 weeks at worst.

Since we only get them 4 times a year they should be huge balance changes that actually strive to make every trait and skill (or at least as many as possible) viable/useful on every class. And this is not what we are getting

RlyOsim.2497:

Question for the community:

3 months are ok the amount of changes these balance patches contain?

I may have gotten spoiled, but as someone who plays both GW2 and LoL, LoL patches things very quickly, sometimes in just a few weeks if something is broken. Compare that to three months for basic changes that might not even pay off.

I would love faster balancing as I like the pvp here, theres just a few issues

No, the changes are not enough at all for a period of 3 months. Especially if you consider all the bad traits/utilities and even weapon skills that have been lacking for ages.

They should have a few balance patches at the end of each season – one every few weeks. Test things and see if they are working as intended. Respond to feedback, etc.

The issue with balance has always been the same with exception of the june 2015 patch. All patches have been low quality and quantity. The current frequency of the patches only makes it clear how little they change.

There is minimal effort to make anything that isnt viable, viable. On top of that absolutely no effort to reign in abuse case builds. There is no dicussion about healthy gameplay and rarely anything on counterplay. For over a year people have complained about some pretty basic issues. Certain classes having to much invuln and sustain, or low counter play in certain areas. Those aren’t the things aren’t ever addressed.

Instead we get guided more and more into specific ways to play a class, even if its not healthy gameplay or solves any of the classes issues. Dagger dagger condi thief is a prime example of what I am talking about. None of the changes promote skillful gameplay, counterplay or help thief with any of its problems. It just opens a new route to play the same thing but different.

They could patch every single day and it wouldn’t matter, because to be frank they aren’t addressing the right problems.

coro.3176:

They should have a few balance patches at the end of each season – one every few weeks. Test things and see if they are working as intended. Respond to feedback, etc.

THIS. easy number changes should be readily available in a week or 1 month tops.

Skill/Trait Reworks around 2-3 months. 3 months if it is a lot.

If GW2 gave out balance patches as frequently as LoL, it’d be a much better game.

DrDivine.5378:

RlyOsim.2497:

Question for the community:

3 months are ok the amount of changes these balance patches contain?

I may have gotten spoiled, but as someone who plays both GW2 and LoL, LoL patches things very quickly, sometimes in just a few weeks if something is broken. Compare that to three months for basic changes that might not even pay off.

I would love faster balancing as I like the pvp here, theres just a few issues

Smite and all of the other legitimate top tier eSport Dev teams do the same with their games. 2 to 3 weeks balancing patches, sometimes balancing patches between the 2 to 3 weeks if devs are unhappy. The devs in those games, don’t have to balance between 9 classes more like 50 plus different characters, hundreds of abilities, and a few thousands of items. Maybe that’s why these games get’s the really really big bucks, and the grandest of stages outside of the Olympics. Simply because they are not lazy and are maybe in it for more then just a quick buck to flip quickly.

They don’t patch quickly because they have to wait to see how the meta shifts.

There have been a slew of cases in gw2 history where the meta doesn’t pan out till months later.

Examples Chronobunker was a day 1 of HoT build but it wasn’t commonly known until over a month after HoT dropped. Macebow condi warrior was also a day 1 HoT build and that thing wasn’t commonly known till season 2.

LoL does rapid balance because the game’s monetization is built off people buying champions (classes) for real cash, so it’s in Riot’s best monetary interest to make sure the meta changes as much as possible, regardless of whether those meta changes are actually fixing anything.

Its shamefull no devs ever reply to this posts, they are all well aware of how poor their work is classes in wvw are so imbalanced. Stealth thiefs still and issue and necros being free loots bags.

Crinn.7864:

They don’t patch quickly because they have to wait to see how the meta shifts.

There have been a slew of cases in gw2 history where the meta doesn’t pan out till months later.

Examples Chronobunker was a day 1 of HoT build but it wasn’t commonly known until over a month after HoT dropped. Macebow condi warrior was also a day 1 HoT build and that thing wasn’t commonly known till season 2.

LoL does rapid balance because the game’s monetization is built off people buying champions (classes) for real cash, so it’s in Riot’s best monetary interest to make sure the meta changes as much as possible, regardless of whether those meta changes are actually fixing anything.

With the amount of things they changed in this patch, it can hardly justify “waiting for meta to shift”.

Reminds me of their AMA since PvE/PvP split, they did say in the future they’ll only make changes similar to what we got in that patch, which is also unbelievably small. For 2-3 seasons ele is still brought for healbot, mesmer for portal and rev with roaming and power dps. Essentially the grand meta hasn’t change and you only have 2 remaining spots of wiggle room.

Ofc when we talk about soloQs it gets messy because people were sorted according to their MMR than class, but you still have 1 healbot, 1 roamer and 2/3 bruisers. That stale state is one of the main reasons why so many were saying that patch balance is basically wheel of fortune/misfortune.

They can balance whenever they kitten well please…but as long as this stack-class-forced-50%-must-carry-low-mmr-as-high-mmr matchmaking idea continues: None of it really matters.

Solo/Duo Queue was step one. Why must we wait until Season 8+ until the rest of the fixes get implemented?

LUST.7241:

They can balance whenever they kitten well please…but as long as this stack-class-forced-50%-must-carry-low-mmr-as-high-mmr matchmaking idea continues: None of it really matters.

Solo/Duo Queue was step one. Why must we wait until Season 8+ until the rest of the fixes get implemented?

you are right that fixes should be more common, BUT, if balance patches were more constant, people would tolerate more the meta shiftings, as they wouldn get bummered with having a class not working in the current meta.

Crinn.7864:

They don’t patch quickly because they have to wait to see how the meta shifts.

There have been a slew of cases in gw2 history where the meta doesn’t pan out till months later.

Examples Chronobunker was a day 1 of HoT build but it wasn’t commonly known until over a month after HoT dropped. Macebow condi warrior was also a day 1 HoT build and that thing wasn’t commonly known till season 2.

LoL does rapid balance because the game’s monetization is built off people buying champions (classes) for real cash, so it’s in Riot’s best monetary interest to make sure the meta changes as much as possible, regardless of whether those meta changes are actually fixing anything.

No, they don’t have to wait for the meta to settle, they choose to wait for it to settle.

Honestly if we got more frequent balance patches it would do nothing but help the game. For one, this whole meta nonsense can give some people an almost toxic attitude towards others. Forcing people to adapt their playstyle more frequently (as opposed to making a change 1 month before a season starts and giving them enough time to let someone else tell them what to do again) also helps separate those players who deserve to be in higher tiers away from those that are carried by their class. People who are being carried by their class/build won’t have a chance at getting to legendary anymore (where they don’t belong) because a patch could come knock it down to where it should be.

Not to mention that the meta doesn’t even have to settle before Anet can look and see if something is overpowered or not performing well enough. Its simple things like

• How many of X class are running this traitline in any content? Why is that % so low/high?

• How many people of Y class ever run this trait/skill? Why is that number so low/high?

• How many people of Z class are using A weapon? How few are using B weapon? Why is 1 weapon favored so strongly over the rest of the weapons available to Z class?

Metas don’t have to settle to determine these statistics, as its painfully obvious when something is underpowered. When it hasn’t been used seriously in over 6 months outside of cheese builds then its clear something needs to change.

And, honestly, if we got patches every 3-4 weeks, who the hell would care if a change made by ANet accidentally over buffed, or over nerfed a class/build? If balance patches happened often then it wouldn’t be nearly as big of a deal as it is now because you would wait 4 weeks (or less) and ANet would do something to revert the negative consequences of their changes. Now though, you have to wait 3 months to even get a chance at these things being addressed. We don’t even have guarantees. And when something is overpowered, instead of gradually bringing it in line over several iterations of balance patches, ANet either does almost nothing, or nerfs it into the ground because they know that with such infrequent balance changes no class can afford to wait several iterations of patches to just determine if the changes were good ones or not.

Smite has 1 year season. Balance updates comes every 2 weeks. They have their ups and down but if something is buffed and ends up being strong af its getting nerfed usually. Example tank boots.

AN will never ever balance this game with current pace. But i dont think they aim to balance it anyway. Its a mess which you cant fix anymore without deleting all classes and starting over from 0.

Burtnik.5218:

Smite has 1 year season. Balance updates comes every 2 weeks. They have their ups and down but if something is buffed and ends up being strong af its getting nerfed usually. Example tank boots.

AN will never ever balance this game with current pace. But i dont think they aim to balance it anyway. Its a mess which you cant fix anymore without deleting all classes and starting over from 0.

Yeah you are more then likely right. Which is why the competitive scene of GW2 is highly laughed at as joke, by anyone who has or is currently playing one of the actually competitive PvP games. ANet’s GW2 is just concerned with monetizing PvE that it’s other supposed competitive game mode end up being non competitive.

Guess if people really want to play at competitive levels, there are no room for them in GW2. ANet monetizes every ounce of being non competitive down to WvW bandwagoners/exploiters that competitive players go elsewhere for their fix.

Svarty.8019:

They seem to be in maintenance mode now, not changing much for fear of breaking the game, and hoping the playerbase doesn’t quit before the xpac.

[OFF TOPIC]

the expact that will had more power creep and more something else oh wait more condis(more condition viable builds) and more stats introduced that will be removed from PvP.

Next spec and stats preformance need to be designed to not be removed from pvp.

Thus design next specs bsed on pvp, and they will be fine for pve also.

This last patch was a really tiny patch for “quarterly” balance. I wish there would’ve been more changes. There’s literally dozens of traits, runes, sigils, and skills that are extremely lackluster.