"Balance" and Lazy Players; Confirmation Bias
X class does Y “better.” than X^2; why play X^2?(balance)
I get really tired of that one, too. It’s commonly assumed among players that there is simply no justification for playing a certain character unless it is objectively optimal for a specific role.
The problem is that the roles themselves are often vaguely defined and there are many stylistic and mechanical differences between characters that might blur the differences in performance in a real game situation.
Furthermore, players tend to exaggerate balance differences when factors like reaction speed, tactical planning and teamwork tend to completely overwhelm something like a few percentage points of DPS or effective health.
Guardian, Engineer
[SIC] Strident Iconoclast – BP
[SIC] Strident Iconoclast – BP
X class does Y “better.” than X^2; why play X^2?(balance)
I get really tired of that one, too. It’s commonly assumed among players that there is simply no justification for playing a certain character unless it is objectively optimal for a specific role.
The problem is that the roles themselves are often vaguely defined and there are many stylistic and mechanical differences between characters that might blur the differences in performance in a real game situation.
Furthermore, players tend to exaggerate balance differences when factors like reaction speed, tactical planning and teamwork tend to completely overwhelm something like a few percentage points of DPS or effective health.
Exactly, I’m hoping that the different, but effective, methodology among each profession will start to be noticed more down the road. :/
“Nerf it, don’t make me play”
I’ve been lurking these forums for quite some time now, and I’ve noticed an unsettling trend among some of the players that come here. (Note: Some -not all) A lot of players do not want to learn their opponents’ skills, traits, and methods of play, this leads to the nerf it outcry we see all to often plaguing the forums. HB, HS, and bunker guardians are prime examples here. HS, is not a preferable skill in most situations, however, it’s high damage output draws our attention in a much sharper manner than those caltrops you’re trampling on. Then, your frustration makes you forget that he just dumped his initiative, and now has down-time. Now, you’re upset and you visit the forums.(perhaps even to learn how to counter them) This is where “confirmation bias” kicks in. There may be a couple threads in your class forums explaining how to counter this, however, you also see threads following your initial train of thought regarding HS.That is, “OMG SO OP; BS.”
TL;DR /Summary: There are methods to overcoming obstacles presented by each encounter, though we are much inclined to accept an explanation correlating with our original assumption.X class does Y “better.” than X^2; why play X^2?(balance)
Personally, I find an exceptional strike of balance in GW2, and certainly better than most MMOs on release. I feel players are looking situations wrong. To better explain, I often see the Mesmer vs. Necro comparison(or necro vs. any other profession) in regards to conditions. But, people often fail to realize that classes are wonderfully diverse, not only in the general sense(ie spells, animation, etc) but, in what they DO with said examples. A thief/warrior might stack bleeds more effectively than a necro, however, a necro has much better control over conditions.
TL;DR: While it may seem that other classes are “better” at a particular job, consider other things they can do within this job. Conditions for example, class X applies faster, but class x^2 may control them better.
-Discuss, offer an argument should you not agree. Please, keep it civil.
-I will be including more, should the discussion pick up.
i disagree. mesmers are severely OP, guardians are OP, thief and warrior burst is a little over the top and burst NEVER EVER promotes good gameplay.
also i main guardian lvl 80, and play mesmer war and guard in spvp and tpvp and have been rank 20 twice, once in beta and now.
IMO 20% longer phantasm cooldowns, removal of target stealth stripping, and a reduction in CC would go a long way for mesmer balance.
Guardians need retaliation duration to be toned down again, 100% retal uptime is unreal even after nerfs, also full heal even with the stability nerf(does not stop a sup guard from getting it off minus moa) needs a value nerf as in should heal for 50% max hp.
warrior and thief burst is pretty easy thing imo to balance, simply reducing base damage of certain burst abilities: HB, back stab, etc and increasing the base damage of other abilities in the weapon set would go a long way. it would nerf burst while promoting similar dpm from sustain.
i think many thieves forget that their initiative downtimes are not longer than cooldowns the other classes have on their skills. addistionally the thief doent have to stay in the fight with low initiative, he can just vanish and run away, other classes cant.
initiative is a class mechanic but the burst capapbilitiy resulting from it needs to be taken to accoundt when defining the base dmg of several skills.
i also often read the guardians are op with their bunker build. its a build with no dps, it would suck if thes would still get bursted down by a single thief. retaliation ist too strong though, its way too easy to maintain.
here are some examples of balancing problems that occur in almost every mmo i ever played:
most of games have a class which is a squishy melee burst dd, so since this class is so squishy it needs skill which help to survive. here is one difficult task: it his class can avoid dmg it is not that much of a problem that it is squishy so it shouldnt do twice as much dmg to balance its statwise half survivability.
in most games this kind of a problem occurs somewhere, often its is the mage and the rogue which have some strange abitlities. in gw2 the ele mage was nerfed to death at some point it seems, the ranger was nerfed during the beta in his dmg oputput, other classes still have bugged skills and plainly useless traits. there is much work to do.
the only thing we can do about it is discussing issues in the forums reasonably so that they can be addressed by arenanet with less expensees.
please do not support the “everything is good as it is” attitude because this doesnt help to improve the game. if there is a discussion on wehter the rocket jump should have 100 range more or less, arenanet will recognize how urgent this issue is compared with 100 blades dealing 11k dmg on an 8s cd.
“Nerf it, don’t make me play”
I’ve been lurking these forums for quite some time now, and I’ve noticed an unsettling trend among some of the players that come here. (Note: Some -not all) A lot of players do not want to learn their opponents’ skills, traits, and methods of play
It isn’t this with most people, or at least I don’t think so. With most people, it’s more like “Why should I, a Necro/Ele/Whatever, spend an hour or two learning the ins and outs of a Mesmer/Thief/Whatever in order to beat him if they don’t have to?”
And I agree. Why should I spend time to memorize cooldown of other classes if thief or warrior can take more glory with “hitting 2 like a boss”.
So tOss plays a Thief and wants everyone else to L2P. Well I can’t say I’m surprised. Since the dawn of PVP any time one class or race is OP that tends to be the go to response by people who play it. This game is already like WOW. Rogues in wow were the counter tokittennear everything and it seems thieves are fitting the tradition well in GW2. No wonder in the poll in the general forums Thieves were rated the most happy among the classes lulz.
Lets drop that silly argument about being out of initiative and things on cooldown for a brief time too. When you essentially get a first strike from stealth and have a very high success rate at killing someone within seconds, 60 sec or whatever it takes for everything to come back is nothing. Getting an easy kill with high success every 60 seconds sounds pretty stupid to me. Nearly every class has those cooldowns if not something much longer. Even if you fail at the kill you can just run away since you’re most likely going to still be at full life. OP is OP
i think many thieves forget that their initiative downtimes are not longer than cooldowns the other classes have on their skills. addistionally the thief doent have to stay in the fight with low initiative, he can just vanish and run away, other classes cant.
initiative is a class mechanic but the burst capapbilitiy resulting from it needs to be taken to accoundt when defining the base dmg of several skills.
i also often read the guardians are op with their bunker build. its a build with no dps, it would suck if thes would still get bursted down by a single thief. retaliation ist too strong though, its way too easy to maintain.
here are some examples of balancing problems that occur in almost every mmo i ever played:
most of games have a class which is a squishy melee burst dd, so since this class is so squishy it needs skill which help to survive. here is one difficult task: it his class can avoid dmg it is not that much of a problem that it is squishy so it shouldnt do twice as much dmg to balance its statwise half survivability.
in most games this kind of a problem occurs somewhere, often its is the mage and the rogue which have some strange abitlities. in gw2 the ele mage was nerfed to death at some point it seems, the ranger was nerfed during the beta in his dmg oputput, other classes still have bugged skills and plainly useless traits. there is much work to do.
the only thing we can do about it is discussing issues in the forums reasonably so that they can be addressed by arenanet with less expensees.
please do not support the “everything is good as it is” attitude because this doesnt help to improve the game. if there is a discussion on wehter the rocket jump should have 100 range more or less, arenanet will recognize how urgent this issue is compared with 100 blades dealing 11k dmg on an 8s cd.
Why does nearly everyone describe PvP as “Kill = win”? People kitten endlessly of thieves running away; guess what, in most scenarios, if the thief ran away, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU WON. You held the point or you kept them from doing something advantageous for their team! They’re down a bunch of CD’s for the next 30s-1m, and won’t be contributing much! Just because you didn’t get the 15 points for driving a stake through their chest doesn’t mean you “lost the fight”.
As for your other points, they’re rather rambling and incoherent, but they have a distinct flavor of “Just doesnt get it”. Allow me to explain – when i first started PvPing, i was about ready to quit a week in; None of the specs I was whipping up on my own were working very well, and every death felt cheap because I had NO idea what was going on. My guildies kept ranting how broken ranger was, so I rolled it. It was nothing magical, so I tried mesmer, guardian, and engi for a period of time afterwards.
When I ditched them to try a new build for my thief I found on some boards, it was like divine intervention – I was kicking kitten
2 reasons –
1) my spec wasn’t glass cannon garbage. I was still learning the game, and glass cannon is completely unforgiving of mistakes. Pick a spec with some survivability, if only to learn how you should be squaring up against other classes.
2)I had a -vague- idea what the other classes I had played could do, so it no longer felt like cheap bullkitten when they dropped me. I quickly learned what abilities to dodge, when not to attack, when to interupt, etc…
Just try it, you’ll find that your preconceived notions are mostly wrong.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
(edited by evilapprentice.6379)
People are wanting a true balance in this system it’s not going to happen in the casual format, that is why you see so many complaints.
I must’ve missed the sign that said it was a fire sale.
You could invert the first bolded point you are trying to make.
“Don’t nerf it, don’t make me play” applies the same way.
Keep Calm and Conquer
When you are out numbered, and the situation is hopeless, you have no option-you must attack
When you are out numbered, and the situation is hopeless, you have no option-you must attack
Why does nearly everyone describe PvP as “Kill = win”? People kitten endlessly of thieves running away; guess what, in most scenarios, if the thief ran away, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU WON. You held the point or you kept them from doing something advantageous for their team! They’re down a bunch of CD’s for the next 30s-1m, and won’t be contributing much! Just because you didn’t get the 15 points for driving a stake through their chest doesn’t mean you “lost the fight”.
Well I’ll say this for you…. you’ve managed to somehow marginalize the ability to actually kill other players in a brutally efficient manner. The problem is you say a player wins if they manage to drive off a thief for the 30-60 sec of his cooldowns but I disagree completely. Even if you only give a thief ambush a 50% chance of success before he escapes that’s a 50% chance every 30-60 seconds of killing another player in many cases even with other players in the area. Briefly driving him off didn’t win you anything but possibly a few more minutes of life. That thief can just go elsewhere or come back more prepared to kill you in no time at all. That means you need more players just to hold a point which actually IS doing something even if you would have us believe otherwise.
You talked a lot about learning your class and learning to pvp but I didn’t catch you mentioning what you play? I assume you’re a thief yes?
Well, I don’t play a thief. I play a necromancer, and occasionally a mesmer. Evil has the idea though, if you survive the burst and get him on the defensive, you’re giving yo urban teammates time to get there and back you up. If your team is going to risk you defending by yourself, then there is the risk of a glass cannon coming to take advantage of that.
Why does nearly everyone describe PvP as “Kill = win”? People kitten endlessly of thieves running away; guess what, in most scenarios, if the thief ran away, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU WON. You held the point or you kept them from doing something advantageous for their team! They’re down a bunch of CD’s for the next 30s-1m, and won’t be contributing much! Just because you didn’t get the 15 points for driving a stake through their chest doesn’t mean you “lost the fight”.
Well I’ll say this for you…. you’ve managed to somehow marginalize the ability to actually kill other players in a brutally efficient manner. The problem is you say a player wins if they manage to drive off a thief for the 30-60 sec of his cooldowns but I disagree completely. Even if you only give a thief ambush a 50% chance of success before he escapes that’s a 50% chance every 30-60 seconds of killing another player in many cases even with other players in the area. Briefly driving him off didn’t win you anything but possibly a few more minutes of life. That thief can just go elsewhere or come back more prepared to kill you in no time at all. That means you need more players just to hold a point which actually IS doing something even if you would have us believe otherwise.
You talked a lot about learning your class and learning to pvp but I didn’t catch you mentioning what you play? I assume you’re a thief yes?
Well, I very clearly stated that I play a thief. Pistol/Dagger tho, so I don’t use HS, PW, or haste. Please, tell me how OP Vital shot is.
Out of curiosity, when did backstab = instant death? People talk as if once you’ve been backstabbed, the fight is over, why bother fighting back. What kind of spec are these people running? In every spec of every class I’ve tried theirs been plenty of utility – cripple, immobile, blind, KD, Push, pull, launch, daze.. the list goes on and on and on. If you get hit with a very hard backstab, you’re facing a glass cannon – a minute amount of CC of nearly any variety will absolutely ruin his day. its 100% risk vs reward.
Also, here’s a free tip – if a thief using Dagger MH stealths near you, do not under any circumstance stand still. Stealth lasts 3 seconds (4 if traited), turning around and swinging your MH is enough to find a thief in most situations – if you connect, dodge roll away. There you go, you just nulled their stealth.
If you’re a thief and haven’t
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
pre-ordered HOT at this point,
save yourself the money and don’t bother.
“Nerf it, don’t make me play”
I’ve been lurking these forums for quite some time now, and I’ve noticed an unsettling trend among some of the players that come here. (Note: Some -not all) A lot of players do not want to learn their opponents’ skills, traits, and methods of play, this leads to the nerf it outcry we see all to often plaguing the forums. HB, HS, and bunker guardians are prime examples here. HS, is not a preferable skill in most situations, however, it’s high damage output draws our attention in a much sharper manner than those caltrops you’re trampling on. Then, your frustration makes you forget that he just dumped his initiative, and now has down-time. Now, you’re upset and you visit the forums.(perhaps even to learn how to counter them) This is where “confirmation bias” kicks in. There may be a couple threads in your class forums explaining how to counter this, however, you also see threads following your initial train of thought regarding HS.That is, “OMG SO OP; BS.”
TL;DR /Summary: There are methods to overcoming obstacles presented by each encounter, though we are much inclined to accept an explanation correlating with our original assumption.X class does Y “better.” than X^2; why play X^2?(balance)
Personally, I find an exceptional strike of balance in GW2, and certainly better than most MMOs on release. I feel players are looking situations wrong. To better explain, I often see the Mesmer vs. Necro comparison(or necro vs. any other profession) in regards to conditions. But, people often fail to realize that classes are wonderfully diverse, not only in the general sense(ie spells, animation, etc) but, in what they DO with said examples. A thief/warrior might stack bleeds more effectively than a necro, however, a necro has much better control over conditions.
TL;DR: While it may seem that other classes are “better” at a particular job, consider other things they can do within this job. Conditions for example, class X applies faster, but class x^2 may control them better.
-Discuss, offer an argument should you not agree. Please, keep it civil.
-I will be including more, should the discussion pick up.i disagree. mesmers are severely OP, guardians are OP, thief and warrior burst is a little over the top and burst NEVER EVER promotes good gameplay.
also i main guardian lvl 80, and play mesmer war and guard in spvp and tpvp and have been rank 20 twice, once in beta and now.
IMO 20% longer phantasm cooldowns, removal of target stealth stripping, and a reduction in CC would go a long way for mesmer balance.
Guardians need retaliation duration to be toned down again, 100% retal uptime is unreal even after nerfs, also full heal even with the stability nerf(does not stop a sup guard from getting it off minus moa) needs a value nerf as in should heal for 50% max hp.
warrior and thief burst is pretty easy thing imo to balance, simply reducing base damage of certain burst abilities: HB, back stab, etc and increasing the base damage of other abilities in the weapon set would go a long way. it would nerf burst while promoting similar dpm from sustain.
what would you buff damagewise for thief? sword mainhand we have pistol whip (what you want nerfed), auto attack, i could see shifting more damage to autoattack, not engaging but whatever. next we have infilatrator strike…that wont promote anything, its a utility skill. then we have head shot…that wont promote anything, its used soley for interrupting spells. then we have black powder, that wont promote anything, its used for the blind field.
dagger offhand, buff dancing dagger? nope, thats for cripple, buff cloak and dagger? nope thats for stealth
dagger mainhand, buff HS? LOL ya right, buff death blossom? nope, thats for evading or condition damage specs (whom dont have burst anyways)
if your not getting it by now, thieves…by design, only have one real damage move per weapon set, spreading damage to our utility moves wont make a smart player use them more often then they need to be used, unless you over buff them, then you have an overpowered skill that does too much.
people suggesting thief changes without understanding the class /sigh
“Nerf it, don’t make me play”
I’ve been lurking these forums for quite some time now, and I’ve noticed an unsettling trend among some of the players that come here. (Note: Some -not all) A lot of players do not want to learn their opponents’ skills, traits, and methods of play, this leads to the nerf it outcry we see all to often plaguing the forums. HB, HS, and bunker guardians are prime examples here. HS, is not a preferable skill in most situations, however, it’s high damage output draws our attention in a much sharper manner than those caltrops you’re trampling on. Then, your frustration makes you forget that he just dumped his initiative, and now has down-time. Now, you’re upset and you visit the forums.(perhaps even to learn how to counter them) This is where “confirmation bias” kicks in. There may be a couple threads in your class forums explaining how to counter this, however, you also see threads following your initial train of thought regarding HS.That is, “OMG SO OP; BS.”
TL;DR /Summary: There are methods to overcoming obstacles presented by each encounter, though we are much inclined to accept an explanation correlating with our original assumption.X class does Y “better.” than X^2; why play X^2?(balance)
Personally, I find an exceptional strike of balance in GW2, and certainly better than most MMOs on release. I feel players are looking situations wrong. To better explain, I often see the Mesmer vs. Necro comparison(or necro vs. any other profession) in regards to conditions. But, people often fail to realize that classes are wonderfully diverse, not only in the general sense(ie spells, animation, etc) but, in what they DO with said examples. A thief/warrior might stack bleeds more effectively than a necro, however, a necro has much better control over conditions.
TL;DR: While it may seem that other classes are “better” at a particular job, consider other things they can do within this job. Conditions for example, class X applies faster, but class x^2 may control them better.
-Discuss, offer an argument should you not agree. Please, keep it civil.
-I will be including more, should the discussion pick up.i disagree. mesmers are severely OP, guardians are OP, thief and warrior burst is a little over the top and burst NEVER EVER promotes good gameplay.
also i main guardian lvl 80, and play mesmer war and guard in spvp and tpvp and have been rank 20 twice, once in beta and now.
IMO 20% longer phantasm cooldowns, removal of target stealth stripping, and a reduction in CC would go a long way for mesmer balance.
Guardians need retaliation duration to be toned down again, 100% retal uptime is unreal even after nerfs, also full heal even with the stability nerf(does not stop a sup guard from getting it off minus moa) needs a value nerf as in should heal for 50% max hp.
warrior and thief burst is pretty easy thing imo to balance, simply reducing base damage of certain burst abilities: HB, back stab, etc and increasing the base damage of other abilities in the weapon set would go a long way. it would nerf burst while promoting similar dpm from sustain.
what would you buff damagewise for thief? sword mainhand we have pistol whip (what you want nerfed), auto attack, i could see shifting more damage to autoattack, not engaging but whatever. next we have infilatrator strike…that wont promote anything, its a utility skill. then we have head shot…that wont promote anything, its used soley for interrupting spells. then we have black powder, that wont promote anything, its used for the blind field.
dagger offhand, buff dancing dagger? nope, thats for cripple, buff cloak and dagger? nope thats for stealth
dagger mainhand, buff HS? LOL ya right, buff death blossom? nope, thats for evading or condition damage specs (whom dont have burst anyways)
if your not getting it by now, thieves…by design, only have one real damage move per weapon set, spreading damage to our utility moves wont make a smart player use them more often then they need to be used, unless you over buff them, then you have an overpowered skill that does too much.
people suggesting thief changes without understanding the class /sigh
if you dont get by now that 2 second ttk is bad, then so are you. simple aye? my point was that by design 1 out of 5 abilities do damage and the rest are utility, what exactly would be wrong with utility spells actually being used to deal damage? oh thats right NOTHING. your point about 3 out of 5 abilities in each weapon set being solely used for utility is absolute fubar. keep defending 2 second TTK bro, the warriors mages and clerics all did in rift, the BW/sorc players did it in warhammer.
people defending 2 second TTK with absolute fubar experience in MMO play /sigh.
I love this 2 second kills everyone keeps talking about yet noone has been able to provide a SINGLE shred of evidence. A screenshot of the death window telling what hit you from 100% till you were dead, does NOT, I repeat does NOT show the time it took for your death and half the time people post those are after being hit by 2 of the same class. All of the builds in the game that allow the fastest possible kill in game currently, rely on cooldowns of at least 30 seconds, more-so around the minute area EVEN THIEF, so I love the exaggeration of all these whiners depicted X class that can move faster then a bullet jumping from player to player insta gibbing them with no downtime. With that imagination I would honestly not be surprised if we started seeing people claiming that dodging is OP and <insert some disgustingly exaggerated number here>
if you dont get by now that 2 second ttk is bad, then so are you. simple aye? my point was that by design 1 out of 5 abilities do damage and the rest are utility, what exactly would be wrong with utility spells actually being used to deal damage? oh thats right NOTHING. your point about 3 out of 5 abilities in each weapon set being solely used for utility is absolute fubar. keep defending 2 second TTK bro, the warriors mages and clerics all did in rift, the BW/sorc players did it in warhammer.
people defending 2 second TTK with absolute fubar experience in MMO play /sigh.
actually everything would be wrong with using utility skills for damage, the mere fact that you think a utility skill should be used for its damage and not for its utiltiy …my god, the stupid.
this is thieves, they work differently, different resource mechanic, what works for the other classes wont work with thief.
and at no point did i efent doing 20k damage in 2 seconds.
I love this 2 second kills everyone keeps talking about yet noone has been able to provide a SINGLE shred of evidence. A screenshot of the death window telling what hit you from 100% till you were dead, does NOT, I repeat does NOT show the time it took for your death and half the time people post those are after being hit by 2 of the same class. All of the builds in the game that allow the fastest possible kill in game currently, rely on cooldowns of at least 30 seconds, more-so around the minute area EVEN THIEF, so I love the exaggeration of all these whiners depicted X class that can move faster then a bullet jumping from player to player insta gibbing them with no downtime. With that imagination I would honestly not be surprised if we started seeing people claiming that dodging is OP and <insert some disgustingly exaggerated number here>
tested signet of assasination+backstab extensively. 10-15k damage crits easily, be more wrong bro.
btw i love the whiner remark, especially since my two favorite classes to play, guardian and mesmer are way overpowered and i have said for ages need a nerf. you seem to imply by your ignorant statement that i am bias towards thief’s for simply stating that 2 second TTK is out of hand.
im sure anet will ignore fanbois like you, and backstab will at some point be nerfed. currently its far to easy to 2 shot people with 4 abilities, yes 4 abilities. traited steal→ stealth→SoA→backstab.
10k dps is currently way to high for balanced pvp.
Meh, guardians are still extremely OP, especially for tPvP.
You say specific roles don’t exist, but they do.
if you dont get by now that 2 second ttk is bad, then so are you. simple aye? my point was that by design 1 out of 5 abilities do damage and the rest are utility, what exactly would be wrong with utility spells actually being used to deal damage? oh thats right NOTHING. your point about 3 out of 5 abilities in each weapon set being solely used for utility is absolute fubar. keep defending 2 second TTK bro, the warriors mages and clerics all did in rift, the BW/sorc players did it in warhammer.
people defending 2 second TTK with absolute fubar experience in MMO play /sigh.
actually everything would be wrong with using utility skills for damage, the mere fact that you think a utility skill should be used for its damage and not for its utiltiy …my god, the stupid.
this is thieves, they work differently, different resource mechanic, what works for the other classes wont work with thief.
and at no point did i efent doing 20k damage in 2 seconds.
if you are not DEFENDING 20k damage in 2 seconds then why respond?
btw its spelled utility, stupidity, and defend. next time l2spell before throwing around the stupid word mmk.
Meh, guardians are still extremely OP, especially for tPvP.
You say specific roles don’t exist, but they do.
How are guardians op exactly? I only have trouble with guardians when the player is good. It’s not because the guardian profession is op, it’s because the Player is just… good.Sometimes I roflstomp thieves, sometimes they stomp me. Op implies any half-wit can mash their face against the keyboard and come out on top consistently.(consistently as in across the playerbase) I have yet tks see that happen.
There is an obvious positive correlation in player skill and success rate, as a whole.