Guild Wars 2

Hello

Im not angry or anithing, im just curious in, for example, ¿How hard is for the devs to make necromancer´s grasping dead apply 2 bleeds instead o 3 compared to making the living story ? In a time / money / effort invested point of view.

You can’t really compare balancing to Living Story content, because the devs that work on one have an entirely different skill set than the devs working on the other. Comparing the two isn’t really a fair question to pose because they are apples to oranges.

In terms of time/money/effort the PvE content takes a lot more input in order to produce, but if you took those guys and made them work on balance, then you would have some seriously undesirable effects. Balance is an analytical and testing function as much as anything where the new PvE content is kind of brute force coding, design and art.

Balance is less kitten the coding that new content. but more difficult in other ways. In part because sometimes buffing /nerfing one thing has unforeseen consequences. making something that was previously ok, now over powered or useless. Balance is incredibly difficult to achieve. IN fact, ITS NEVER perfect.

daydream.2938:

IN fact, ITS NEVER perfect.

No it is not, but we have seen a lot better days in this game…

Cant say as I just returned today. The game was relatively balanced when I left, however it had so few viable specs.

A lot of play diversity +balance is near impossible.

uri.6521:

Hello

Im not angry or anithing, im just curious in, for example, ¿How hard is for the devs to make necromancer´s grasping dead apply 2 bleeds instead o 3 compared to making the living story ? In a time / money / effort invested point of view.

it’s not hard at all. To apply the changes it would be a matter of coding and changing the formula. Problem is a lot of people will need to be involved after the change.

Besides the coder, tooltip artist will need to write new tool tips. QC will have to playtest the changes to make sure it doesn’t feel broken. Someone would have to document the change (though I’m not sure if they have a dedicated job for that)

Plus, if you are working in the game industry where the majority of work are team oriented, chances are there will be someone who dislike the idea. You will have to spent time trying to convince these people. It’s harder if that person is one of the higher-ups.

And since ArenaNet is a pretty big company there will be a lot of people that you need to convince.

They really should have just done classes like WAR or WoW.
Sure having traits and weapons you can mix and match is cool… but only if the dev team is EXTREMELY competent…
Anet isn’t, even in the most passionate delusion.

The devs aren’t competent enough to enact timely changes in a complicated system (like traits), and they for rucks sake even aren’t able to take a simple/controlled setup (like weapons/utils) and tweak them to be more enjoyable to play!!

It leaves the devs in a terrible pickle that makes me wonder again and again how GW1 came to be…

garethh.3518:

like WAR

I agree, we should have only one class in the whole game called Bright Wizard. That was probably the most brilliant design decision WAR made, one class to rule them all, along with its many other brilliant decisions that led to its astronomical and ongoing critical success.

garethh.3518:

They really should have just done classes like WAR or WoW.
Sure having traits and weapons you can mix and match is cool… but only if the dev team is EXTREMELY competent…
Anet isn’t, even in the most passionate delusion.

The devs aren’t competent enough to enact good changes in an even remotely timely manner in a complicated system, and the devs aren’t able to take a simple/controlled one and tweak it to be enjoyable…

It leaves them in a terrible pickle that makes me wonder again and again how GW1 came to be…

It’s not about the competency of the dev. It’s about the team structure.
It’s more likely that gw1 was made by a smaller team, which means the rollout and changing process is much more simple than GW2. It’s actually not all that terribly hard to implement the changes. With so many industry veterans, adding these changes should take maybe a month top if they are given the greenlight to work on it.

The problem is they probably aren’t given the greenlight just yet.
A bigger team means more productivity, but it also means more politics and work relations to handle. Having an idea is no longer enough. You need to be able to convince everyone on the team to go with the changes. You need to articulate the idea – not just saying ’ hey guys wouldn’t it be cool if we do this’ – to a lot of people. You need to make sure everyone is on the same boat, and is able to understand why the change takes place when they’re asked. Some of them will be unhappy, and these people might be the people who you cannot afford to cross.

You’re also dealing with increased publisher pressure since the upkeep for bigger team is higher and if the publisher wants you to focus on certain aspect of the game you can’t really say ‘No i wanna add this instead.’

Vena.8436:

garethh.3518:

like WAR

I agree, we should have only one class in the whole game called Bright Wizard. That was probably the most brilliant design decision WAR made, one class to rule them all, along with its many other brilliant decisions that led to its astronomical and ongoing critical success.

See what I mean? If you can’t even convince some random on the forum, how are you going to convince the people who have vastly more superior industry knowledge than you that the changes you’re asking for is good?

Good stuff btw Vena. I loled a bit.

showatt.9413:

Vena.8436:

garethh.3518:

like WAR

I agree, we should have only one class in the whole game called Bright Wizard. That was probably the most brilliant design decision WAR made, one class to rule them all, along with its many other brilliant decisions that led to its astronomical and ongoing critical success.

See what I mean? If you can’t even convince some random on the forum, how are you going to convince the people who have vastly more superior industry knowledge than you that the changes you’re asking for is good?

Good stuff btw Vena. I loled a bit.

You act like the talk here, if sensible and convincing, will in some way matter to the future of the game.
You must be new here?

It’s possible that the pressure towards success and intricacies of working in a larger team are slowing them down.
It’s also possible that the devs really don’t know how to make an enjoyable game. People have always said GW1’s gameplay went downhill with time… meaning Anet actually was making the game less enjoyable to play with their changes… which means they aren’t actually sure what an enjoyable game plays like… which REALLY fits the changes coming out in GW2, disregarding the ludicrous amounts of time it took to make them.

Vena.8436:

garethh.3518:

like WAR

I agree, we should have only one class in the whole game called Bright Wizard. That was probably the most brilliant design decision WAR made, one class to rule them all, along with its many other brilliant decisions that led to its astronomical and ongoing critical success.

Hah.
Good times.

Anyways…
There’s a lil bit of a difference.
The WAR devs just didn’t care.
GW2’s have caring in spades… they just are incapable from one means or another… shoring up that issue with simplicity would only seem to help.

garethh.3518:

Hah.
Good times.

They were terrible times! Mein gott!

If only the world were so kind as to spare me from any more MJ products…

garethh.3518:

GW2’s have caring in spades… they just are incompetent from one means or another… shoring up that issue with simplicity would only seem to help.

The studio is small when it comes down to the makers and shakers, but I’d probably call them talented. The development team, while numbered at 200, is largely not actually that large when it comes to actual creators. The four teams on LS largely employ tools already created while new tech is also made in the background, with SAB being the only wide exception of an update that is pretty much showcasing novel tech. I think, across the board, you actually have a very small group of developers actually developing tools that slowly make their way into usage but said developing resources are spread all over the game from WvW to PvP to PvE. I’d even go so far as to wager that given the complexity of the former two vs. the later one, that they actually do get a good bit of attention but their cycle of development is simply much, much longer given even equal developmental man power.

Now, why is the actual creation team so small? You’d probably have to go up to upper management for that and the offices of NCSoft. When it comes down to it, when daddy calls, he’s going to want people in places where most of the money flows from.

At least its not SoE… Someday, in the future, I might actually be able to log into FFXIV and figure out if I like the game. Someday.

PS: The fact that the devs care in spades, is, if anything, what gives some people hope that this game has a future.

uri.6521:

Hello

Im not angry or anithing, im just curious in, for example, ¿How hard is for the devs to make necromancer´s grasping dead apply 2 bleeds instead o 3 compared to making the living story ? In a time / money / effort invested point of view.

Very. It is hard to balance across PvE, PvP, and WvW. Splitting those skills completely would be a mess to maintain.

The other thing is there is no such thing as an OP class right now. There are just OP weaponsets or specs at the moment. One spec that is OP in PvP might be weak in PvE and vice versa. That’s the challenge.

Vena.8436:

They were terrible times! Mein gott!

If only the world were so kind as to spare me from any more MJ products…

PS: The fact that the devs care in spades, is, if anything, what gives some people hope that this game has a future.

I enjoyed WAR.
But it was also the first MMO I got into, so had that kicker on its side.
It had legions of issues, but the PvP was still popular.

I even thought Rift PvP was good up to lvl 40.

GW2…

Anyways.
They do have allot of work cut out for them, and I could forgive slow production time (to a point)… if what they did put out was very helpful to the game.

That hasn’t been the case and their timing couldn’t be slower… I mean it took them 6 months to up projectile speed on shortbow… it took them 3~ months to realize warriors might need compensation from the frenzy nerf… the leaderboards are trash, SPvP is the worst hotjoin I’ve seen and they split solo and ‘any group’ que…
Anet might have talent, brilliance and passion, but its worthless if it isn’t put to the task.

garethh.3518:

…. makes me wonder again and again how GW1 came to be…

A large dose of random luck. It is evident through the things they’ve done in the balance and the things they’ve said historically that they have a minimal understanding of the features that made GW1 great, let alone the features that make every other competitive game even competitive.

I think the balancing of this game would be quite difficult, especially when they don’t want to separate the skills between PvE PvP and WvW.

Currently, a build will become good and every one (bar a few players) will play that build for that profession. To increase the build diversity you would have to increase power of other less played builds while not making them better then the top build. Add to this the viability of said build in PvE and WvW changes everything. If you suddenly boosted warrior builds so they would all be good as skull crack then you would boost the warriors already good PvE skills further and who would play anything other then warrior in PvE?. Contrasty if you reduce the power of skull crack builds you would have to be carful not to reduce it too far.

Not only do you have to balance the profession over 3 parts of the game, but you also have to balance the profession and its builds to other builds of the same profession and the other professions. Taking into consideration how those other builds then perform in PvE, PvP (against all other builds) and WvW.

Remember, if they were to power down Necros and Rangers and power up the lesser classes at the same time, then you could get into a reverse meta. One where everyone would play Mesmer / Elementalist and Rangers and Necros would go back into the black.

TGSlasher.1458:

Not only do you have to balance the profession over 3 parts of the game, but you also have to balance the profession and its builds to other builds of the same profession and the other professions. Taking into consideration how those other builds then perform in PvE, PvP (against all other builds) and WvW.

WvW is a self-correcting system, imo, because of how large a number of people that get involved therein individual class OP-ness gets diluted.

WvW can never be balanced: NEVER
It uses PVE versions of skills ?
Ridiculous Stat combinations?
It uses Foodbuffs/ridiculous items ?
There’s an absurd amount of Zergwarfare?
PvE mobs everywhere/used as troops even ?

That’s just naming SOME of the problems if they wanted to try to balance pve+.

Vena.8436:

TGSlasher.1458:

Not only do you have to balance the profession over 3 parts of the game, but you also have to balance the profession and its builds to other builds of the same profession and the other professions. Taking into consideration how those other builds then perform in PvE, PvP (against all other builds) and WvW.

WvW is a self-correcting system, imo, because of how large a number of people that get involved therein individual class OP-ness gets diluted.

do u even play wvw? ok then tell me what happens if a zerg with a ton of necros hits a zerg with a lot of mesmers? what about the new warrior meta? its ridiculous how strong the warrior is in wvw. gueardian trains are nearly unstoppable.thieves crit u for kitten 8k even if u have toughness. i cant even react due to the interrupt spam in wvw.

meanwhile mesmers are bottom feeders(and no im not talking about stupid roaming im talking about wvw).mesmers will not get wel deserved buffs for wvw, because of spvp! all we are atm in wvw is veil,tw and portal bots. all those builds u are so afraid of in spvp, they suck in wvw. clones die beforee they reach and phantasms are a joke in a zerg.mesmer is a duelist atm and nothing more. all our traits are balanced and aimed towards 1v1. this has to stop.
honestly i am starting to wish for the total nerf to nothingness of phantasms and shatters, so we can move forward to new builds that work in wvw aswell. ill give up phantasms, shatters, moa and hey take veil,tw and portal right with u!

Balance changes are easy to apply. It’s the testing that takes time. You know. All the testing Anet does before making balance changes. Making sure they catch the big problems before they go live and completely kitten up the game. Real serious stuff.

selan.8354:

do u even play wvw? ok then tell me what happens if a zerg with a ton of necros hits a zerg with a lot of mesmers? what about the new warrior meta? its ridiculous how strong the warrior is in wvw. gueardian trains are nearly unstoppable.thieves crit u for kitten 8k even if u have toughness. i cant even react due to the interrupt spam in wvw.

Making an extreme, impossible example is not how you demonstrate a point; ie. a zerg of mesmers vs a zerg of necros. One that will never happen, two you seem to be under the impression that Null Field (an extremely powerful ability in WvW) doesn’t exist.

selan.8354:

meanwhile mesmers are bottom feeders(and no im not talking about stupid roaming im talking about wvw).

Just because you don’t like the builds they have available (and since when is roaming not a part of WvW?) doesn’t mean jack. There will always be optimal builds: optimal builds for zerging, for roaming, and for havoc.

Vena.8436:

selan.8354:

do u even play wvw? ok then tell me what happens if a zerg with a ton of necros hits a zerg with a lot of mesmers? what about the new warrior meta? its ridiculous how strong the warrior is in wvw. gueardian trains are nearly unstoppable.thieves crit u for kitten 8k even if u have toughness. i cant even react due to the interrupt spam in wvw.

Making an extreme, impossible example is not how you demonstrate a point; ie. a zerg of mesmers vs a zerg of necros. One that will never happen, two you seem to be under the impression that Null Field (an extremely powerful ability in WvW) doesn’t exist.

selan.8354:

meanwhile mesmers are bottom feeders(and no im not talking about stupid roaming im talking about wvw).

Just because you don’t like the builds they have available (and since when is roaming not a part of WvW?) doesn’t mean jack. There will always be optimal builds: optimal builds for zerging, for roaming, and for havoc.

roaming is not the problem. yes it is part of wvw.yes,it can be fun to roam, but there are people out there that wanna be able to fight in a group and been taken serious by commanders. most of the time the expect us to use veil.
yes i run a reflection build atm as i like trying out new builds, but since the glam nerf there hasnt been anything new that is even close in comparison. i wish that anet starts to buff other unused skills and traits. i feel stuck with what we got atm and spvp balance is stopping anet from buffing anything even though in wvw it is needed.

all the current wvw builds somewhat feel puzzled together and a little awkward atm. we are trying to puzzle something together like an interrupts build where a warrior can easily spec into it and is way more successful with it.
we come up with a condition build, where the same warrior can use perplexity and get more viable longer lasting stacks than we do, the rest of our conditions is rng based.
then we got a little bit of boonsharing and need a lot of traits and againan rng based sigil where a guardian can push a few buttons that create the same thing,but better.
we got stealth, but thats a thief’s specialty.
what we lack is a clear role in wvw,but spvp keeps us locked into the roaming duelist. and in spvp i think we got many tools to be viable once the condi and cc meta is toned down.