Guild Wars 2

when you see a thread where top players voice out their opinion, or complaints and such, it is advisable to let that thread be populated with their discussions. it is educational for those who are just lurking or just want to know the top players’ thought process. i know, you are grabbing the opportunity to get even with them by doing PvForums vs them and beat them with your rhetorical prowess since you can do no kitten with them in game but i hope if your purpose is to shoot arrows to the moon just to prove a point, please don’t. it is best to stay silent and read. then think about them. then move on.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Oh, also, the reason we can’t give Necro’s too much disengage has to do with the point of “purity of purpose”.

In this game, we want to allow classes the ability to deal with all situations but in different ways. But, if we give all classes all TOOLS (which is a different thing), then players get confused as to which classes fill which roles, and in what way they fill those roles

Example: In PvP, the Necro and Engi both vie for the position of condition pressure. The engineer has more physical alternatives, the Necro has more boon/condition manipulation, the Engi has more escapability, and the Necro is a little squishier. If we gave the Necro too much mobility or escapability, then all of a sudden their “tools” start to line up exactly. If this is the case, one of them will simply be better than the other, as far as efficacy goes, and thus, one will push the other out of the meta for that “role” on the team. This class would then be the “apex” predator for that role. So, in order to prevent this, we try to make it so that the classes don’t have all their tools overlap perfectly. This means you have to say (following our example), “Well, if we take a Necro, we get more condies, but a squishy body that can’t disengage…..but if we take Engi, we lose some DPS and control (depending on utils), but we get someone who can stand up to a spike better”.

Make sense? If we just gave the escape to Necro’s, then all of a sudden, the Necro is just the clear choice. Not all decisions come down to a clean break like this, but this is the type of thing we’re trying to do when we “deny” some classes certain tools.

That provides a perspective I hadn’t considered. Thank you for that.

I guess then the question is: with the current meta, does the extra condi pressure a Necromancer bring compensate for his (significantly) greater susceptibility to an assist train at the start of the fight?

My initial thought would be that the answer would be dependent upon the team composition. That is, can the team comp provide adequate peeling and healing to cover the necromancer’s shortcomings?

I don’t believe I’m adequately qualified to answer that. Anecdotally, I think Zombify was running a double ele team to get pressure off him and his most recent posts seemed to indicate his comp was insufficient prior to the patch.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Oh, also, to the Op’s point (sorry, I’m about to present in China, my mind is elsewhere, didn’t mean to ignore the OP):

The reason we did a “big” change for the Necro, as I’ve stated before, is that we had the Pax tournament coming. We knew we wanted to get Necros and Warriors up with the other classes, and that’s why we had big changes.

Also, a lot of our changes happen VERY far ahead of what you guys see on live. What do I mean?

• It takes us time to get our changes to editors for writing (any text/trait change has to be edited). This can take a week or more.
• We have to then get changes to writers.
• We then have to make sure we work with artists for any visual changes
• We also have to work with sound to make sure we have sound for any changes
• We have to work with icon artists for icons if they’re needed (in the case of Death Shroud 5)
• We have to make sure the changes get through multiple stages of QA testing
• Then with the changes in, we get time to play them before we do final changes
• While doing all this, we have to take the current meta, be it in dungeons/wvw/pvp, and from that, try to extrapolate what we think needs to be done a few months in advance.

This process can take a LONG time, as you can imagine. It’s not as simple as, “Oh, let’s change this to a 2, and change that to a 7.”

I know the video game industry in general is not very transparent when it comes to how things actually work, but I wanted you guys to know that a lot of times, there is a LOT of process for even the SMALLEST balance/content changes.

Hope this makes sense.

Oh, also, the reason we can’t give Necro’s too much disengage has to do with the point of “purity of purpose”.

In this game, we want to allow classes the ability to deal with all situations but in different ways. But, if we give all classes all TOOLS (which is a different thing), then players get confused as to which classes fill which roles, and in what way they fill those roles

Example: In PvP, the Necro and Engi both vie for the position of condition pressure. The engineer has more physical alternatives, the Necro has more boon/condition manipulation, the Engi has more escapability, and the Necro is a little squishier. If we gave the Necro too much mobility or escapability, then all of a sudden their “tools” start to line up exactly. If this is the case, one of them will simply be better than the other, as far as efficacy goes, and thus, one will push the other out of the meta for that “role” on the team. This class would then be the “apex” predator for that role. So, in order to prevent this, we try to make it so that the classes don’t have all their tools overlap perfectly. This means you have to say (following our example), “Well, if we take a Necro, we get more condies, but a squishy body that can’t disengage…..but if we take Engi, we lose some DPS and control (depending on utils), but we get someone who can stand up to a spike better”.

Make sense? If we just gave the escape to Necro’s, then all of a sudden, the Necro is just the clear choice. Not all decisions come down to a clean break like this, but this is the type of thing we’re trying to do when we “deny” some classes certain tools.

-Chap from China

Wow, I haven’t been playing this game for very long and did not play the first game very much, so I don’t know much about ArenaNet but this is amazing. It’s so great that you would write a response like this for the community. I think in all my time playing other MMORPGs, I’ve never seen such a detailed forum response.

Yes, you’re right. I think nearly all players, myself included, did not grasp the extent to which ideas had to be worked on before implementation. It’s clear that the company cares about the players, and it’s unfortunate that with the tournament coming bigger changes had to be made more quickly as opposed to slower changes. But I think a post like your reply would have been very useful pre-patch. Let the players know why you can’t just take their suggestions and do them. It’s great that you replied now, but if this had been known before, I think maybe some players wouldn’t have been so frustrated. Because it seemed like you guys heard their suggestions and then completely ignored it and did something else. That, I believe, was a big factor in the frustrated, hostile feelings.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you are wrong. There are a handful of elite players or “top tier” pvpers while there is a large majority of casuals. Start neglecting them you have no top tier. This game was created for casuals, hence no grind for level or gear. I can agree that the top tier know more about the mechanics of the game and can be a great resource, but relying on them and only them is not the answer because you will neglect a majority of the player base. Once again, they play a different game than casuals. Their builds are made to synergize with one another, they rely on each other for peels and buffs and have constant communication. These things are not available to the casuals because they either don’t have a specific team and also don’t play 8-10 hours a day.
The issue here is that there needs to be more seperation ( solo q) between the two groups because at this point we are to meshed together. You want this game to succeed? The game will ultimately have to tailor to the casual because there are so many more of us than there are of top tier players.
As far as esports goes, once again that caters to the top tier, which is still a small percentage of the population. There aren’t enough players as it is now, so splitting it in this way will only hurt the game more.
Once again I believe that the top tier can and will be a valuable resource for game development, but you cannot cater completely to them and ignore a majority of the playerbase because in the end you will have no player base.

While I appreciate the thought process here Jonathan, what works for one part of the game, doesn’t always work for the others. Finally Necros had a structurally strong build which only needed some damage tweaking (aka the fear damage and possibly the burn damage also) to fix the fotm 30/30/10 build. Instead, you ruin it completely by moving greater marks to the master tier. There was already a serious lack of condition build diversity and now we’re left licking our wounds. WvW was finally seeing Necros again but I guess people will just bench them again.

Pinkus.2860:

While I appreciate the thought process here Jonathan, what works for one part of the game, doesn’t always work for the others. Finally we had a structurally strong build which only needed some damage tweaking (aka the fear damage and possibly the burn damage also) to fix the fotm 30/30/10 build. Instead, you ruin it completely by moving greater marks to the master tier. There was already a serious lack of condition build diversity and now we’re left licking our wounds. WvW was finally seeing Necros again but I guess people will just bench them again.

Ask yourself this.

Does making an entire weapon set’s abilities unblockable not sound like a VERY powerful trait? Does it not deserve to be higher?

To be honest the trait is quite ridiculous and shouldn’t even be in the game to begin with. Once they become unblockable all counter play to them is removed.

Pinkus.2860:

While I appreciate the thought process here Jonathan, what works for one part of the game, doesn’t always work for the others. Finally Necros had a structurally strong build which only needed some damage tweaking (aka the fear damage and possibly the burn damage also) to fix the fotm 30/30/10 build. Instead, you ruin it completely by moving greater marks to the master tier. There was already a serious lack of condition build diversity and now we’re left licking our wounds. WvW was finally seeing Necros again but I guess people will just bench them again.

I’d respectfully disagree. I’m now running without greater marks and I can say that, for the first time since beta – staff is quite usable without that trait. Huzzah! (I don’t know if it’s really a ‘master level’ trait, however)

DanzelOPP.5068:

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you are wrong. There are a handful of elite players or “top tier” pvpers while there is a large majority of casuals. Start neglecting them you have no top tier. This game was created for casuals, hence no grind for level or gear. I can agree that the top tier know more about the mechanics of the game and can be a great resource, but relying on them and only them is not the answer because you will neglect a majority of the player base. Once again, they play a different game than casuals. Their builds are made to synergize with one another, they rely on each other for peels and buffs and have constant communication. These things are not available to the casuals because they either don’t have a specific team and also don’t play 8-10 hours a day.
The issue here is that there needs to be more seperation ( solo q) between the two groups because at this point we are to meshed together. You want this game to succeed? The game will ultimately have to tailor to the casual because there are so many more of us than there are of top tier players.
As far as esports goes, once again that caters to the top tier, which is still a small percentage of the population. There aren’t enough players as it is now, so splitting it in this way will only hurt the game more.
Once again I believe that the top tier can and will be a valuable resource for game development, but you cannot cater completely to them and ignore a majority of the playerbase because in the end you will have no player base.

Well, I mean for balance, I really don’t think people are going to quit just because the company takes balancing ideas from top players. I’m just looking at “the e sport” right now, LoL. They have a very balanced competitive play, and the rest of the players seem more than happy. Also, being a multifaceted game, I was just stating that if they did want to become an e sport, they would have to balance competitive play. There would still be plenty of gameplay in non-sPVP. You are right, in that it would be nice if there were a separation. But this doesn’t work until your competitive PVP is fun and balanced. SWTOR tried it with their regular and ranked, but then no one ended up doing ranked.

My point is that at this point with a struggling playerbase splitting your base hurts more than it helps. There needs to be a larger base before this game goes esports because if you drop off more people there can be no esports.

JonathanSharp.7094:

pajamaboi.9534:

Wow, I haven’t been playing this game for very long and did not play the first game very much, so I don’t know much about ArenaNet but this is amazing. It’s so great that you would write a response like this for the community. I think in all my time playing other MMORPGs, I’ve never seen such a detailed forum response.

Yes, you’re right. I think nearly all players, myself included, did not grasp the extent to which ideas had to be worked on before implementation. It’s clear that the company cares about the players, and it’s unfortunate that with the tournament coming bigger changes had to be made more quickly as opposed to slower changes. But I think a post like your reply would have been very useful pre-patch. Let the players know why you can’t just take their suggestions and do them. It’s great that you replied now, but if this had been known before, I think maybe some players wouldn’t have been so frustrated. Because it seemed like you guys heard their suggestions and then completely ignored it and did something else. That, I believe, was a big factor in the frustrated, hostile feelings.

Well, as I said, the gaming industry, overall, is still not terribly transparent to most of the world. I don’t think it’s anything secretive, it’s just not to the same level as, to use the example again, the “Making of” type stuff we see for so many movies.

Also, we try to reply as much as we can, but often times, it comes down to trying to get things done within our processes, or taking time away to talk to the players. If we get to that choice, we choose WORKING FOR YOU GUYS over talking TO you every time. We realize it may not seem like that on the outside, but game devs really bust their butts.

Haha yes of course. I’m not trying to take anything away from you here. Honestly, I think you should take the reply you typed, paste it in a new thread and sticky it. Then on half the complaint threads, someone can just reference the thread in response.

DanzelOPP.5068:

My point is that at this point with a struggling playerbase splitting your base hurts more than it helps. There needs to be a larger base before this game goes esports because if you drop off more people there can be no esports.

Ah, I see. Yes, you’re right.

with marks blockable as a guardian I feel I can finally do something besides just double dodging when they spam them at me..

JonathanSharp.7094:

Oh, also, to the Op’s point (sorry, I’m about to present in China, my mind is elsewhere, didn’t mean to ignore the OP):

The reason we did a “big” change for the Necro, as I’ve stated before, is that we had the Pax tournament coming. We knew we wanted to get Necros and Warriors up with the other classes, and that’s why we had big changes.

Also, a lot of our changes happen VERY far ahead of what you guys see on live. What do I mean?

• It takes us time to get our changes to editors for writing (any text/trait change has to be edited). This can take a week or more.
• We have to then get changes to writers.
• We then have to make sure we work with artists for any visual changes
• We also have to work with sound to make sure we have sound for any changes
• We have to work with icon artists for icons if they’re needed (in the case of Death Shroud 5)
• We have to make sure the changes get through multiple stages of QA testing
• Then with the changes in, we get time to play them before we do final changes
• While doing all this, we have to take the current meta, be it in dungeons/wvw/pvp, and from that, try to extrapolate what we think needs to be done a few months in advance.

This process can take a LONG time, as you can imagine. It’s not as simple as, “Oh, let’s change this to a 2, and change that to a 7.”

I know the video game industry in general is not very transparent when it comes to how things actually work, but I wanted you guys to know that a lot of times, there is a LOT of process for even the SMALLEST balance/content changes.

We get to see how Ridley Scott made Blade Runner with a companion DVD special, but in video games, no one talks about all the complex processes that go into making and balancing a game as complex as GW2 (which is basically 3 games in 1, all using the same balance #’s).

Hope this makes sense.

_Also, keep in mind we’re trying to get 8 classes to fit into 5 slots, for PvE, Dungeons, and PvP. _

This is all high level, and I’m in a rush, but I just wanted to explain this real fast…..

It’s funny, being in China, I have more time to post on the forums than I do while in the office. That’s irony or something….like 10,000 spoons….

-Chap from China

I love how the prominence of PvE in your post is essentially the same as how I personally perceive the prominence of PvE in balance and class design (I realise this is a post in a PvP thread).

What I don’t understand is how you say you do all this testing, yet something as simply as the ranger Remorseless/Precise Strike bug gets through. If you tested this change to see if it wasn’t overpowered or even accomplished what you hoped it would, how did you miss something as obvious as Remorseless doesn’t actually reapply Precise Strike when in combat? I understand there are a lot of changes every month and some of them are complex (and if anything, this post argues against slower balance patches, which I’m not fond of) and some things will slip through the cracks, but I don’t see how you could have tested this trait and the build it would be used in without realising it doesn’t work.

I’m not unhappy the bug made it through, I just don’t understand how it happened when triggering it should have been central to testing the new trait.

JonathanSharp.7094:

• It takes us time to get our changes to editors for writing (any text/trait change has to be edited). This can take a week or more.
• We have to then get changes to writers.

Not trying to sound harsh but whoever is proof reading isn’t doing a fantastic job.

“Hunter’s Shot: This skill no longer applies vulnerability on each hit, but now grantss the ranger stealth for 3 seconds.”

>grantss

Celestial Amulet – CelestRial jewel

>CelestRial isn’t a word

Gain life force as you take damage. Removed when you enter Death Shroud. Also applies protection.

>Previous patch “Death Shroud: No longer removes the Spectral Armor buff.”

The fact that it takes weeks and they still slip up is comical at best. Not trying to derail the topic any further so I’ll get back on topic.

The problem with the most recent patch to necros is that they went from zero to hero. It shifted the meta from power to condi. The fact that many top tier mesmers no longer play their preferred profession as they simply cannot do their role effectively tells you something.

Mesmers are extremely susceptible to conditions as they have very little to condi cleanse with. To be frank the reduction on the recharge of null field was a bit of a kick in the teeth, a 5 second reduction is not going to help when you’ve got a condition nuke firing all cylinders in an AoE fashion.

I’ll be surprised if we see many of them at all in the qualifiers for PaX and if we do I wish them the best of luck.

The sheer response from the community expressing that necro condi pressure is too much is a sign to do something. As the time between patches is so long, when nothing substantial happens you can expect an outcry.

Edit: Another thing that thoroughly annoys me is the ridiculous messages saying the game will patch in 1-2 hours. It then takes a good 4-5 hours to patch and in the mean time the PvP community are left to jump around the heart of the mists as they are unable to play PvP. Considering you understand that PvPers tend to stick to PvP why hasn’t this been addressed? Turn around time is pretty inefficient imo.

Velron.3729:

Pinkus.2860:

While I appreciate the thought process here Jonathan, what works for one part of the game, doesn’t always work for the others. Finally we had a structurally strong build which only needed some damage tweaking (aka the fear damage and possibly the burn damage also) to fix the fotm 30/30/10 build. Instead, you ruin it completely by moving greater marks to the master tier. There was already a serious lack of condition build diversity and now we’re left licking our wounds. WvW was finally seeing Necros again but I guess people will just bench them again.

Ask yourself this.

Does making an entire weapon set’s abilities unblockable not sound like a VERY powerful trait? Does it not deserve to be higher?

To be honest the trait is quite ridiculous and shouldn’t even be in the game to begin with. Once they become unblockable all counter play to them is removed.

I partially agree that the ‘idea’ of unblockable is strong but quite honestly, the staff was being used for the fear which is why it was so important. As far as I know, Doom and Spectral Wall are still blockable, making the chain fear potentially avoidable. Staff as a whole is actually a rather underwhelming weapon for Necros. It has low damage considering the cooldowns compared to other weapons but the utility it brings is what makes it worth taking. I think the chain fear combo was / is a fantastic concept (admittedly a little strong with the old terror + dhuumfire combo) and it makes enemies think hard about cleansing in WvW. I just feel as though they added a really great playstyle that had huge potential and not much tweaking needed aside from the damage but now we’re back to where we started a month ago.

JonathanSharp.7094:

We get to see how Ridley Scott made Blade Runner with a companion DVD special, but in video games, no one talks about all the complex processes that go into making and balancing a game as complex as GW2 (which is basically 3 games in 1, all using the same balance #’s).

Hope this makes sense.

With all my respect but it make no sense to me, if you guys are trying to balance the 3 parts of the game using the same balance, it’s seems crazy to me.

Even in some games like lol, they balance around a classic game type but the characters which are considered top tier in 5vs5 are totally diferent from characters which are considered top tier in 3vs3.

I remember some of the last SoTG you mention that you want to new players in spvp from pve or wvsw to know what their characters do, but I want you to know that everyday that I see new players on the mist i just listen the same question. where are the rings and other accesories apart from the amulet?

You guys split the game to make spvp competitive , I dont understand why you dont divide balance to the same reason.

JonathanSharp.7094:

As I’ve said, if we split EVERYTHING and maintained 3 versions of every skill in the game (PvE/WvW/PvP), we’d be adding a LOT of work for the balance team. As it is, we try to keep most things consistent, and only split where we feel it is needed.

Isn’t it harder trying to make compromises between the three? Rather than tweaking numbers a little between each?

I mean, they are already incredibly split due to the overwhelming effect critdmg and foodbuffs have. It would be nice if we could get some consistency between modes through number tweaking.
eg. Killshot 1shotting people in WvW while being near useless in PvP. Backstab critting for upwards of 14k in WvW while D/P thieves are considered only a tier above warriors in PvP.

JonathanSharp.7094:

It’s a work flow issue, hope this makes sense. It would also mean that players would have to learn 3 different versions of every skill, which is not good for new players.

Not buying it. And neither are most other PVE’ers. Have yet to see one complete set of balance changes clearly designed to help PvE’ers and maybe showed the slightest disregard for up-lel PvP. It’s always going in the other direction. And somehow still not satisfying the PvP’ers as this thread demonstrates. Even some of the PvE dungeons lately seem more like a PvP arena than something clearly intended to be fair to every class in PvE. If that isn’t trying to condition PvE’ers to accept PvP as the “Alpha and Omega” here, then I don’t know what is… (maybe ya ain’t noticed, but they judge alpha by what gives the best l00t)

Jumper.9482:

JonathanSharp.7094:

As I’ve said, if we split EVERYTHING and maintained 3 versions of every skill in the game (PvE/WvW/PvP), we’d be adding a LOT of work for the balance team. As it is, we try to keep most things consistent, and only split where we feel it is needed.

Isn’t it harder trying to make compromises between the three? Rather than tweaking numbers a little between each?

I mean, they are already incredibly split due to the overwhelming effect critdmg and foodbuffs have. It would be nice if we could get some consistency between modes through number tweaking.
eg. Killshot 1shotting people in WvW while being near useless in PvP. Backstab critting for upwards of 14k in WvW while D/P thieves are considered only a tier above warriors in PvP.

Basically this

JonathanSharp.7094:

Sheslat.6750:

JonathanSharp.7094:

We get to see how Ridley Scott made Blade Runner with a companion DVD special, but in video games, no one talks about all the complex processes that go into making and balancing a game as complex as GW2 (which is basically 3 games in 1, all using the same balance #’s).

Hope this makes sense.

With all my respect but it make no sense to me, if you guys are trying to balance the 3 parts of the game using the same balance, it’s seems crazy to me.

Even in some games like lol, they balance around a classic game type but the characters which are considered top tier in 5vs5 are totally diferent from characters which are considered top tier in 3vs3.

I remember some of the last SoTG you mention that you want to new players in spvp from pve or wvsw to know what their characters do, but I want you to know that everyday that I see new players on the mist i just listen the same question. where are the rings and other accesories apart from the amulet?

You guys split the game to make spvp competitive , I dont understand why you dont divide balance to the same reason.

As I’ve said, if we split EVERYTHING and maintained 3 versions of every skill in the game (PvE/WvW/PvP), we’d be adding a LOT of work for the balance team. As it is, we try to keep most things consistent, and only split where we feel it is needed.

It’s a work flow issue, hope this makes sense. It would also mean that players would have to learn 3 different versions of every skill, which is not good for new players.

This post is great, really quick question. With the LS setup you have 4 different teams working on balance changes, have you guys thought about doing 3 seperate teams of people? Right now people think theres only 2 people balancing the game (who knows how many it actually is, that was just a rumor that started and people always reference it). I have no idea how the gaming industry works, so what if you split it into 3 teams of like 2 or 3 people. Is that way outside of Anet’s budget? I can’t help but feel you guys shot yourselves in the foot by making these aspects of the game wildly different.

Also keep doing what you do with the SotG. Those are great. I feel like every time you’re gonna nerf a profession or make a big buff to a profession, maybe make a post talking about where you’re going with the class and what you’d like to see it do. So far all we know about necromancers is that you want to make life force more easy to gain or more diverse.

I suppose my big problem with giving different classes different tools is that necros got burning instead of something else (confusion or torment or something unique).

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I suppose my big problem with giving different classes different tools is that necros got burning instead of something else (confusion or torment or something unique).

And by something unique you mean a crappier condition.

The problem with conditions is that you have some, like burning, which are too strong at the uptime they’re applied, while others like confusion and poison are too weak. Blleds only really start threatening at 6-7 stacks.

Pinkus.2860:

While I appreciate the thought process here Jonathan, what works for one part of the game, doesn’t always work for the others. Finally Necros had a structurally strong build which only needed some damage tweaking (aka the fear damage and possibly the burn damage also) to fix the fotm 30/30/10 build. Instead, you ruin it completely by moving greater marks to the master tier. There was already a serious lack of condition build diversity and now we’re left licking our wounds. WvW was finally seeing Necros again but I guess people will just bench them again.

Necros have been part of wvw for many months.

pot.6805:

Pinkus.2860:

While I appreciate the thought process here Jonathan, what works for one part of the game, doesn’t always work for the others. Finally Necros had a structurally strong build which only needed some damage tweaking (aka the fear damage and possibly the burn damage also) to fix the fotm 30/30/10 build. Instead, you ruin it completely by moving greater marks to the master tier. There was already a serious lack of condition build diversity and now we’re left licking our wounds. WvW was finally seeing Necros again but I guess people will just bench them again.

Necros have been part of wvw for many months.

Nowhere near as much as staff eles or the warrior/guardian frontlines.

You bring about 2-3 necros per 15-20 people. Any more than enough to put wells and you’re shooting yourself in the foot as they’re very easy to train and shut down.

ilr.9675:

JonathanSharp.7094:

It’s a work flow issue, hope this makes sense. It would also mean that players would have to learn 3 different versions of every skill, which is not good for new players.

Not buying it. And neither are most other PVE’ers. Have yet to see one complete set of balance changes clearly designed to help PvE’ers and maybe showed the slightest disregard for up-lel PvP. It’s always going in the other direction. And somehow still not satisfying the PvP’ers as this thread demonstrates. Even some of the PvE dungeons lately seem more like a PvP arena than something clearly intended to be fair to every class in PvE. If that isn’t trying to condition PvE’ers to accept PvP as the “Alpha and Omega” here, then I don’t know what is… (maybe ya ain’t noticed, but they judge alpha by what gives the best l00t)

Agree with this ^

As primarily a PvE player, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen some “balance” update which makes a skill/trait virtually useless in PvE, just so it’s balanced for PvP. I’m sorry but PvP, WvW, and PvE have, from the start, been completely different “games”, to balance them all with the reasons you’ve stated just isn’t justified IMO. You will NEVER be able to have all three at just the right balance. Balance one and the other two become unbalanced!

Please don’t forget that not all of us enjoy the PvP aspects of the game. Players are not completely useless that they won’t notice that traits/skills work a little different in PvP, I realised it the very first time I stepped into PvP.

Splitting the skills would be the easiest solution for the PLAYERS. The reason you have given above seems more like you’re suggesting that it’s the players’ fault, because we are dumb and can’t figure these things out on our own, and I find that quite insulting.

Xeph.4513:

This is mostly incorrect, fact is people who want to play this game competitively need this game to succeed in order for them to succeed, so they are more likely to throw bias aside in order for this game to become better; what we have here is not a flourishing game, but rather a game that is struggling, so there is no real reason for players that are taking this game seriously to try and derail balance.

This sounds like a variation of the trickle-down effect, adjusted to online/gaming environment.

Anyhow, hinting that so-called top players only care about the benefit of the game is laughable, and nothing but a blatant lie.
The dismay and frustration of existing ‘pros’ after the forlast patch, and the rise of new names in the higher echelons of pvp associated with it (at the dismay (!) of those ‘pros’), speak volumes, as to what that top x% really wants at the end of the day.

Israel.7056:

pajamaboi.9534:

Consider the following two theoretical situations, and decide which would be better:

Your hypothetical is a textbook example of the logical fallacy known as the false dilemma or the excluded middle. It assumes that only two eventualities are possible when in fact there could be other alternatives.

However if I personally had to choose I would choose thereotical situation 1. I would rather see every single top level player quit if it meant that there would be a thriving middle and lower level. I believe it’s far more important to cater to the casual, semi-serious crowd than the hardcore crowd because they by definition must outnumber the top level/hardcore crowd.

I believe that the absence of a broad playerbase is the ultimate evil for a game. It means that the middle and lower tiers disappear and no one has anyone play against except maybe at the higher level tiers. I believe that the absence of a broad playerbase combined with the absence of key features like solo queue and an extremely protective matchmaking system are far more likely be to driving away more players than the absence of balance at the highest levels of play because by definition only a small number of people are even capable of playing at the highest levels of play.

If I were a developer my main concern would be broad market appeal, not niche market appeal.

EDIT: To put it another way, if we imagine a scenario where every top level player quits we’re only talking about losing a few hundred people at most. If we talk about the middle and lower level shrinking we’re probably talking in the thousands. If you were a developer which scenario would you fear more? I know that as a player I see the second scenario as the least desirable outcome.

Well said.

JonathanSharp.7094:

This means you have to say (following our example), “Well, if we take a Necro, we get more condies, but a squishy body that can’t disengage…..but if we take Engi, we lose some DPS and control (depending on utils), but we get someone who can stand up to a spike better”.

Wad.

jakalofnaar.1702:

ilr.9675:

JonathanSharp.7094:

It’s a work flow issue, hope this makes sense. It would also mean that players would have to learn 3 different versions of every skill, which is not good for new players.

Not buying it. And neither are most other PVE’ers. Have yet to see one complete set of balance changes clearly designed to help PvE’ers and maybe showed the slightest disregard for up-lel PvP. It’s always going in the other direction. And somehow still not satisfying the PvP’ers as this thread demonstrates. Even some of the PvE dungeons lately seem more like a PvP arena than something clearly intended to be fair to every class in PvE. If that isn’t trying to condition PvE’ers to accept PvP as the “Alpha and Omega” here, then I don’t know what is… (maybe ya ain’t noticed, but they judge alpha by what gives the best l00t)

Agree with this ^

As primarily a PvE player, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen some “balance” update which makes a skill/trait virtually useless in PvE, just so it’s balanced for PvP. I’m sorry but PvP, WvW, and PvE have, from the start, been completely different “games”, to balance them all with the reasons you’ve stated just isn’t justified IMO. You will NEVER be able to have all three at just the right balance. Balance one and the other two become unbalanced!

Please don’t forget that not all of us enjoy the PvP aspects of the game. Players are not completely useless that they won’t notice that traits/skills work a little different in PvP, I realised it the very first time I stepped into PvP.

Splitting the skills would be the easiest solution for the PLAYERS. The reason you have given above seems more like you’re suggesting that it’s the players’ fault, because we are dumb and can’t figure these things out on our own, and I find that quite insulting.

dude, the dev already detailed the problem. anet does not have the resources to split between game modes. I happy that Anet is becoming transparent and revealing their patch process and I hope they continue to being transparent to develop a healthy community.

Splitting skills between game modes increases unnecessary work load for them. Developers have to redo the patch process for each game mode. For example, anet wanted to create a new skill call nightmare for a mesmer. Those developers have to test the patch on all three game mode which diverts resources from real pve content. No, they cannot test it on pvp and pretend it works in pve because they might have split a trait and didn’t realize the new skill conflicts.

As a pvE player, I want anet to spend time making more viable skills than testing existing skills because of this split. GW2 already have a long list of buggy skills, dont make it three times longer with people wanting to bring X from pvp or Y from Wvwvw.

I’m definitely not a top tier player (barely top 1000), but I do PvP a lot and wanted to throw my imput into this awesome thread.

In my opinion, when it comes to balance, you balance around the absolute best. Everything below the absolute best is just considered a skill cap. The game can’t be balanced around casual players, because it ruins the tournament scene. And anything with a prize pool needs to take priority over hotjoins.

As for the topic of the thread, I agree that this meta is just flat out boring. Condi application is too rapid with too little of a counter play. Most power builds have obvious tells that you can dodge to avoid damage. Not only are most condi tells much more obscure, they’re on far too short of a cooldown, and can be recast way too quickly.

I’m not going to go more in depth on why and how Necros, spirit Rangers, and S/D thieves are OP. That’s been beaten to death in this thread. But I agree with every point made.

As an Ele, I do wanna say that, if Anet fixes those three classes, S/D ele should be next on the chopping block. S/D Ele can throw out over a 10k instant cast burst that’s off the global cooldown and can be done while stomping, stunned, knocked down, disabled, etc. That much instant cast damage is outrageous because it can’t be countered. Anything that can’t be countered isn’t fun to play against. It doesn’t promote skill, and it’s bad for the game.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Anyhow, hinting that so-called top players only care about the benefit of the game is laughable, and nothing but a blatant lie.
The dismay and frustration of existing ‘pros’ after the forlast patch, and the rise of new names in the higher echelons of pvp associated with it (at the dismay (!) of those ‘pros’), speak volumes, as to what that top x% really

You know what’s really frustrating? We say things like ‘x’ build needs to be changed because it’s too effective for the level of effort it takes. Then people, who have not played at the top, and have no idea what it’s like to play at the top, say “oh, well those necros, thieves, and rangers are just the best now that their builds are ‘up to par.’ You need to adapt!” That’s frustrating.

To prove it (and because we want to win) it’s gotten to the point where we’re playing these builds now because it doesn’t look like they’re getting changed anytime soon. The funny thing is that while we have MUCH less experience on these builds, we’re actually beating these players and teams that came out of nowhere because of the comp they’re playing post-patch.

It’s not an issue of whether or not we’ll still be playing at the top, it’s an issue of do we even deserve to be there for playing these mindless builds/comps? Are we even having fun doing so?

That’s why this thread was made.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just wanted to jump in and say I’m watching this, but I didn’t want to derail this thread.

I think the “high level” and the “casual” are equally important to the health and life of the game.

The truth is that we need to balance for both, and we need to use 1 set of #‘s for THREE game types, which all have “high” and “casual” markets. So, in a sense, the balance team is balancing for 6 different types of players, all while trying to keep the #’s as consistent as possible for all game types.

Keep the other game types in mind and thanks for being cool/calm/collected when discussing such a volatile issue.

Do you think you’ve overshot a little with the Ride the Lightning nerfs? Especially in PVE/WVW? With bunker ele in the state they are now, don’t you think a 20 seconds base cooldown and 1200 range would be balanced, without the double cooldown thingy? Or maybe 900 range 20 seconds cd, moves less with cripple, moves more with swiftness, like the new engineer rocket boots?

I’d love to have a dev’s opinion on the current RTL, because what you did to the skill over the last few month was the most severe nerfs to a single skill I’ve ever seen in any MMO, and I think especially the double cooldown was too much, because it takes away so much fun from ele roaming when out of combat.

JonathanSharp.7094:

And the truth is, most of the time, it’s not that we don’t want to tell you guys these things, we’re just so freaking busy, we just don’t have the time. We’ll try to do as much as we can on that matter.

Allie has been helping us a TON by helping to explain things to players while we keep our heads down to design/implement changes.

This is quite telling. You have community managers, you have community “special operations” managers, you have all sorts of people whose job title appears to be “communicate to the playerbase”, but you are doing precious little of it outside of your own corporate channels and painful, scripted interviews with Colin.

“But we don’t have time!” is not a good reason. Make time. Player feedback is the most important thing to consider when you’re developing an MMO, and player feedback can’t really happen without a dialogue between devs and players.

When I see Anet people in game, they don’t talk. You guys were quite active on the Reddit during the beta, not any more. Yes we occasionally get a bit of chat on the forums, where you can control the dialogue, but that seems to be about it.

Communication is a two-way street guys and gals, during the beta you used to be quite good at it, what happened?

Thank you for explicitly mentioning the purity-of-purpose point.
It’s something I’ve heard and accepted in previous MMOs and hence come to understand better when I tried to design a Pen&Paper RPG with a friend (we stumbled into this exact issue when doing combat balancing).

It’s a very important and integral part of class-identity, yet usually cast aside by PvP-players as they prefer a fully on-par setup. Yet in turn, this tends to make class design forgettable, a trap WoW fell one step at a time after Arena was added. It’s balanced nicely (at least for a MMO, where smallscale PvP combat cannot be balanced perfectly in the first place), but it lost much of the “feel” of each class in the process.

I also think that overpowered abilities do have their place. Sometimes, you just need a Warrior to jump in with a Hammer and smash everyone to pieces. Sometimes, you need a Thief to become invisible and you can’t do anything about it. It’s things like these which make playing a class awesome, and for PvP-balance, it’s better to achieve parity in possibilities than parity in power.

As in: Everyone has their handful of unbalanced powerful abilities, instead of everyone being balanced all the time.

Plus, the “overpowered ability” is a very important aspect of PvE balance, it’s what makes players feel like they’re contributing to a group.

Please what ever you do DON’T split the skills (pve / pvp / www).

The reason I am somewhat active in pvp is because I like to practise small scale skirmishes for future www use. The link will be lost the second the skills are split and game modes disconnected. There will be no incentive for me to go to practise in pvp arenas anymore.

Chamone.6890:

JonathanSharp.7094:

And the truth is, most of the time, it’s not that we don’t want to tell you guys these things, we’re just so freaking busy, we just don’t have the time. We’ll try to do as much as we can on that matter.

Allie has been helping us a TON by helping to explain things to players while we keep our heads down to design/implement changes.

This is quite telling. You have community managers, you have community “special operations” managers, you have all sorts of people whose job title appears to be “communicate to the playerbase”, but you are doing precious little of it outside of your own corporate channels and painful, scripted interviews with Colin.

“But we don’t have time!” is not a good reason. Make time. Player feedback is the most important thing to consider when you’re developing an MMO, and player feedback can’t really happen without a dialogue between devs and players.

When I see Anet people in game, they don’t talk. You guys were quite active on the Reddit during the beta, not any more. Yes we occasionally get a bit of chat on the forums, where you can control the dialogue, but that seems to be about it.

Communication is a two-way street guys and gals, during the beta you used to be quite good at it, what happened?

There are very few people willing to work past their mandated 8-hour day without any form of compensation. You cry that Game Design devs don’t actively participate much, but I seriously doubt that you’ll stand up to the same scrutiny or take it kindly if anyone implies that you should be working overtime for the love of your job. That being said, communication is still a big part of game design and hence why community coordinators exist. It is also the reason why certain games whose developers are personally interested and vested in their games enjoy exceptional success, but holding developers to that standard is quite entitled.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just wanted to jump in and say I’m watching this, but I didn’t want to derail this thread.

I think the “high level” and the “casual” are equally important to the health and life of the game.

The truth is that we need to balance for both, and we need to use 1 set of #‘s for THREE game types, which all have “high” and “casual” markets. So, in a sense, the balance team is balancing for 6 different types of players, all while trying to keep the #’s as consistent as possible for all game types.

Keep the other game types in mind and thanks for being cool/calm/collected when discussing such a volatile issue.

Sorry but just wanna know how in hell are you planning to balance a game around BOTH casuals and hardcore players…As i wrote before you must pick one and leave the other…otherwise it’s just going to be a mess…..like now….esport games will never be balanced around “noobs” since that would automatically make the game too easy and boring for hardcores…we all know this…right?

Archaon.6245:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just wanted to jump in and say I’m watching this, but I didn’t want to derail this thread.

I think the “high level” and the “casual” are equally important to the health and life of the game.

The truth is that we need to balance for both, and we need to use 1 set of #‘s for THREE game types, which all have “high” and “casual” markets. So, in a sense, the balance team is balancing for 6 different types of players, all while trying to keep the #’s as consistent as possible for all game types.

Keep the other game types in mind and thanks for being cool/calm/collected when discussing such a volatile issue.

Sorry but just wanna know how in hell are you planning to balance a game around BOTH casuals and hardcore players…As i wrote before you must pick one and leave the other…otherwise it’s just going to be a mess…..like now….esport games will never be balanced around “noobs” since that would automatically make the game too easy and boring for hardcores…we all know this…

Of course the game has to make sense at both ends of the spectrum. If they make it solely for hardcores, most people would be put off entering the game, even the potential top-tier players, because of the immense learning curve. It also cannot be an e-sport which is their goal, since the 99% of the spvp-playing spectator base would dissipate. If they balance for casuals, then that creates a skill ceiling that makes the game more uninteresting as you get better, so the same thing happens. Once people reach that plateau, they quit due to the perceived limitations in play.

I miss the balance before the necro-buff. Teams could actually run a wider spectrum of setups than nowadays. Even with the patch yesterday, many ppl are still forced to play classes, they wouldn’t play without these changes. I hope we can get to the point where ppl can actually freely choose their comp, without being influenced of the meta. Also the meta should not be based around a class, as it is now the case with necro. The only class since release, which kept staying in the meta is the guard. However, I don’t see the guard to be a problem, as there is no way to abuse this class, especially not in stacking it.

Furthermore heavy condition spam is in my opinion not very well placed in this game. There is no stat that counters conditions. Toughness was usefull against power-damage and this relation between those stats was really interesting. For conditions it is not.

Xeph.4513:

Stealth, is another issue in this game and plays right into the same category, it’s just so difficult to punish, and there is no real other counter for stealth than another stealth, there is no intelligent play behind; it’s just a free “do what I want” card.
If there was a reveal mechanic or a way to counter it, then you would see a lot more intelligent play and thought process put behind stealthing, but at the current state of the game there just isn’t.

Amen to that!

I’ve been crying, QQ’ing, whining little a baby since launch how stupid this is. No counter and basically a huge advantage is bad design. It was originally designed to used sparringly as one dev stated but its now completely spammable (if you are a thief, but not if any other class)

Stealth is tough to balance as no game I know does it well. I heard DAoC did a good job of it and recognised it for the powerful trait that it was. Things like you couldn’t restealth if you had line of sight. At the moment thieves have invisibility not stealth.

Thobek.1730:

Xeph.4513:

Stealth, is another issue in this game and plays right into the same category, it’s just so difficult to punish, and there is no real other counter for stealth than another stealth, there is no intelligent play behind; it’s just a free “do what I want” card.
If there was a reveal mechanic or a way to counter it, then you would see a lot more intelligent play and thought process put behind stealthing, but at the current state of the game there just isn’t.

Amen to that!

I’ve been crying, QQ’ing, whining little a baby since launch how stupid this is. No counter and basically a huge advantage is bad design. It was originally designed to used sparringly as one dev stated but its now completely spammable (if you are a thief, but not if any other class)

Stealth is tough to balance as no game I know does it well. I heard DAoC did a good job of it and recognised it for the powerful trait that it was. Things like you couldn’t restealth if you had line of sight. At the moment thieves have invisibility not stealth.

This, so much. Stealth is ok on 30-40 seconds cooldown skills as a defensive or getaway mechanic. But once it becomes spammable every second it becomes incredibly OP. IMHO the whole problem with thief stealth is pistol 5 + HS/Shortbow2 spam and Cloak and Dagger.

loseridoit.2756:

Splitting skills between game modes increases unnecessary work load for them.

That’s a really convenient position to have when all of the changes being made, are being made specifically to benefit YOUR format. Of course that’s going to save time also, WHEN it means you don’t have to test and calculate what an impact it has on the other Formats and their Myriad of sub-formats. Right now it’s not even being balanced for ALL of PvP, it’s only being balanced for a niche mode of PvP where 5 players camp static Capping points and see who can bunker the best … what happens if CTF or GVG or Domination or Onslaught ever finally gets added?

Face it, you’d be singing a completely different tune if the only format they were balancing for was one you didn’t care for… And if we were REALLY being honest with ourselves here, we’d all admit that format isn’t even fun to follow on E-sports. Spectators want to see Pentakills and other over the top crap. They want to see a big clash and high Kill streaks. …not watch a bunkering/timer ratio while the camera skips around trying in vein to discern where the action is actually happening.

.

…and we’re just getting started here on convenient truths…
What about this latest blog post promising they’re adding MORE SKILLS TO THE GAME that even people like me who are running out of PvE content, are totally against for the same reason they claim “they don’t have time to make Splits”. ….. Oh but they have time to add new skills as Progression rewards? ….which is it?? It can’t be both. If they don’t even have time to make slightly different versions of core skills between Bunker-Ball & Dungeons … then why do they magically have the manpower to make completely new skills that many of us agreed shouldn’t even happen yet b/c of the problems it caused in GW1 once there was too many of them to try and balance. ….and HALF of those DID HAVE SKILL SPLITS. Funny how they found time back then… when their live team was half the size of a Bennegins wait staff…

I never post on the forums. Hell I haven’t logged into the game since 3-4 months ago. Just would like to say Jonathan you are an amazing developer. This reply has been the best reply I have seen in ANY game. I am very happy to see an AMAZING game, the BEST PVP eccentric game I have ever played in my life that the developers are the most communicating in any game EVER. Although the game is in a bad stump right now, I believe after this post that it’ll be amazing and hopefully one day it’ll be as big as LoL. Because I know you guys put your heart into this game. You guys have my full support. We really do need solo que and better leaderboards though, =D.

That being said, I totally agree with the Devs that they can’t just change everything in an instant. Just because one thing is OP there needs to be more time for it to settle in before more people learn how to counter it. Honestly GW2 has a very small playerbase right now so that might take some time. I am sure that the dev’s will change/nerf the necro somehow. They have nerfed almost every single thing you guys have complained so far.

Keep it up Jonathan Sharp. I really do sometime in the future gw2 will fruit into the game it should be since day 1. This game is going to make it, were all going to make it.

Zenith.7301:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I suppose my big problem with giving different classes different tools is that necros got burning instead of something else (confusion or torment or something unique).

And by something unique you mean a crappier condition.

The problem with conditions is that you have some, like burning, which are too strong at the uptime they’re applied, while others like confusion and poison are too weak. Blleds only really start threatening at 6-7 stacks.

The only damage conditions that aren’t applied in intensity are burning and poison. Having a trait apply, say, 4 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds could put it on equal offensive footing to burning (roughly) while also being unique to the class.

Jumper.9482:

JonathanSharp.7094:

As I’ve said, if we split EVERYTHING and maintained 3 versions of every skill in the game (PvE/WvW/PvP), we’d be adding a LOT of work for the balance team. As it is, we try to keep most things consistent, and only split where we feel it is needed.

Isn’t it harder trying to make compromises between the three? Rather than tweaking numbers a little between each?

I mean, they are already incredibly split due to the overwhelming effect critdmg and foodbuffs have. It would be nice if we could get some consistency between modes through number tweaking.
eg. Killshot 1shotting people in WvW while being near useless in PvP. Backstab critting for upwards of 14k in WvW while D/P thieves are considered only a tier above warriors in PvP.

+1

Was sort of the same problem in Gw1 when balance was sometime broken, then you must try to switch out your current team build and break the meta, if you can.
Hopefully it will get fixed, when it’s done.

With J. Sharp mentioning pve’s balance, I’ll take this opportunity to post my feelings about why pve’s balance feels so uneven with pvp’s balance. I think the biggest problem with pve’s balance is its own design, being skill splitting a secondary issue. It’s very solo driven, all enemies are slow to attack, AI is simplistic, and bosses rely on defiance, unshackeable and other mechanics that… clash against the many balance changes carefully done by the balancing team.

IF pve had more enemy formations, IF the AI could coordenate bursts, IF the AI could kite when in danger, IF the AI could coordenate rezzes (if such thing existed there), and so on, wouldn’t that make the lives of the balancing team much easier? Maybe the AI is the main issue, but we don’t even need the best AI ever, just have it simulate some basic reactions and generate some basic strategies that are common place in a pvp environment.

How can a jack-of-all-trades elementalist (to give an example) ever hope to be useful in pve’s content when their control skills are pointless against defiance, when their healing skills mean little against one-hit kills, when enemies eat an entire HB Warrior chain over and over, when there’s no strategy with position nor with movement (outside of avoiding red circles), with no enemy spreading or kiting, etc?

I feel there’s a dissonance between this game’s balance and this game’s pve design, as if the teams in charge of those two things had no communication or unified vision between themseves. GW1 was a bit better in this regard, if only because it had enemy formations and all content was designed around teamwork. If GW1’s pve wasn’t swarmed by mobs, and had more emphasis on quality over numbers and aoe abuse, that game’s pve would be even closer to its pvp than it is now.

Even talking solely about pvp, having both modes closer to each other could allow for some faster changes coming.