FIX YOUR BROKEN GAME!!11! NERF MESMAR PLZ – Said by everyone who was turned into a moa
Usually, players who make propositions that a game is imbalanced are players that have just lost a match and are attempting to shift blame away from their bad skills and onto the game itself. Nine times out of ten, the players who call your game “broken” and “imbalanced” because they lost that match wouldn’t be complaining if the situation was reversed.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not an easy task for the developers to balance a game. Balancing a game is like investing in stocks. There’s no clean cut, defined way of doing it. Every game is unique, so most of the time all the developers have to fall back on is their own judgement and experience.
Balancing a game becomes considerably more difficult when your game has multiple classes that play totally differently from each other. Not only do the developers have to design each class uniquely, but they also must insure that one class isn’t inherently more powerful than the other. For example, The Guardian and the Thief are two classes which are arguably exact opposites in their playstyles and in how they function. Sure, the quick Thief can navigate the map very fast in comparison to the slow Guardian, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a more powerful class than the Guardian. On the other hand, the tanklike Guardian has a lot of survivability and defensive potential. Figuring out how to make two different classes with totally different playstyles and abilities in balance with one another is no easy task.
There are certain skills in a game which may seem overpowered at first glance, although when you look at the broader horizon you can easily see that they are not too powerful. When I was turned into a Moa by a Mesmar for the first time, my initial reaction was something to the tune of “Wow, that ability is way too good.” Then I made my own Mesmar and seen the ridiculously long recharge on that ability. Sure, Signet of Humility can turn the tide of a team fight if utilized correctly, which would be totally imbalanced if it wasn’t for it’s long recharge and easiness to dodge.
The most important reason of balancing your game is to make sure that particular playstyles, classes and strategies do not become irrelevant. In an MMORPG, its all about choices, so keeping all classes and builds viable is an important, but difficult task. This is an issue that is seen in the Guild Wars 2 meta with all the Elite Spec builds running rampant.
You also need to balance your game for each experience level. Some cheap tactics may be very effective at intermediate play, but in the competitive scene they are no threat to the health of the game at all. When I first started playing Guild Wars 2, Dragon Hunter traps would constantly kill me. They were hard to avoid and i didn’t know how to play around them. As i progressed, dodging a Dh’s traps became a walk in the park. Dragon Hunters’ traps are a cheap gimmick that will kill new players, which you could argue is a little imbalanced at the intermediate level. But your average joe won’t fall prey to them so easily, and that is what makes them overall balanced.
So, the question I want to pose to you is simple: Is Guild Wars 2 balanced? What changes would you like to see that you think will help make the PvP environment more diverse? If you could scale the balance of this game from 1 through 10, what would you give it?
Good community participation is important when it comes to balancing any game. And no, raging at Anet to nerf Mesmar and calling Guild Wars 2 “broken” is not going to help them make a balanced game. Constructive criticism is the best thing that you can offer.