Guild Wars 2

Why weren’t the updates doled out in smaller balance changes over time?

Did 5 pages of updates happen over a course of 3-5 days and thus warranted being pooled together all at once?

A client of mine once said
’We’re stranded out here likes it’s the desert. We would love some water, but giving us a tub of it all at once won’t help us right now. Give us sips so that we’re OK’.

It lends itself well to the current sPvP issue. Dwindling population, less enthusiastic player base, staunch back and forth negativity on the forums.

I firmly believe that things would have been much better off / Arena Net could have kept their good will if things were doled out in small weekly updates of a few changes here or there.

I don’t need a tub of water in a week, I need sips to stay alive right now.

It’s definitely hurting the game, but on their side of things they really have to be concerned about unintended consequences when it comes to balancing.

Now, bug fixes on the other hand…

Oozo.7856:

It’s definitely hurting the game, but on their side of things they really have to be concerned about unintended consequences when it comes to balancing.

Now, bug fixes on the other hand…

Bug fixes are a bigger can of worms than balances. You can say you’ve fixed “X” but ended up breaking “Y” in the process… and this was a problem early on at/around release where one bug fix cascaded into other bugs coming out of the wood work. If anything, the fact that they might have actually taken their time to test and run this update-to-be through the grinder of ID and their testers, probably means its a rather big deal.

If all they wanted was to roll out a balance patch and not even care, you’d have seen it with the dye drops update. There’s doing a job for the sake of getting it done, and then there’s doing a job for the sake of doing it right.

Jon wasn’t in the mists testing out thief burst for kitten and giggles, and that’s probably going to be their hardest en-devour in the whole thing: how do we fix this class without giving the Smiter’s Boon treatment or just making it broken somewhere else. Fixing mesmers is easy by comparison: “Portals no longer work in combat, require LoS, cannot carry more than X people, and cannot move environmental objects or bundles.” and “Phantasms and Clones cannot reach where the Mesmer cannot reach and require LoS.” The LoS issues being largely for the WvW abuse that these skills bring.

I’m not sure what to expect out of Guardians or Elementalists… I smell bad winds and many tears.

Honestly, I think I can live without water for a week, but if the bathtub isn’t full next week then I’ll really need sips every so often cause waiting for yet another tub-full would be tough.

Well I’m sure if someone is completely dehydrated out in the desert, they’re not going to “complain” if someone gives them a tub of water.

Same here, just glad we’re getting something.

I would hate to be lumped into a ‘never satisfied’ category but what Defektive is saying is very true and I’ve felt the same from the start. Weekly updates would be better than a monthly (padded) build. And spontaneous hotfixes would go a long way to keep faith alive.

if they dont bother to hotfix skills and only do big monthly updates you might as well pull the plug