Guild Wars 2

Serious question.

I think an even better question to ask would be, if players were playing a theoretically perfectly balanced, yet complex game, would they recognize that it was balanced or would there be just as many complaints about balance?

While my question is pretty much rhetorical, I would bet that there would still be a forum full of cries about balance, since the average players perspective on balance is based on what they experience which is influenced by their choice of class, their level of play and any biases they may have.

**I am not saying GW2 is a perfectly balanced game or anywhere close to it, but I think that many of the whine posts regarding balance on these forums are completely unjustified.

Seether.7285:

I think an even better question to ask would be, if players were playing a theoretically perfectly balanced, yet complex game, would they recognize that it was balanced or would there be just as many complaints about balance?

While my question is pretty much rhetorical, I would bet that there would still be a forum full of cries about balance, since the average players perspective on balance is based on what they experience which is influenced by their choice of class, their level of play and any biases they may have.

**I am not saying GW2 is a perfectly balanced game or anywhere close to it, but I think that many of the whine posts regarding balance on these forums are completely unjustified.

100% percent agree on this.

I think they should be able to get a rough balance going. One which means lots of different builds are viable. But it seems like a mammoth task. Still they should be trying for it. At the moment bunker and burst are still too strong, imo, both need toning down. Then we might get some viable balanced builds.

Psikerlord.2569:

I think they should be able to get a rough balance going. One which means lots of different builds are viable. But it seems like a mammoth task. Still they should be trying for it. At the moment bunker and burst are still too strong, imo, both need toning down. Then we might get some viable balanced builds.

I thought so early on, I think now, moreso it’s just that burst builds and bunker builds are straightforward and easy to make. Balanced builds are there, and there are plenty of varieties, the problem is that it’s bloody difficult to get things that “jive” together in the right way. I played almost 600 matches as an Engineer, then finally watched some of Teldo’s twitch.tv stream and build list and had several “ kitten never thought of doing that” moments.

Short version, burst and bunker are easy to figure out… stack attack, stack defense. Knowing what to sacrifice and what to take makes making a balanced build very difficult for any newer, or even some experienced players like me that just didn’t “get it” with a few traits.

Also, more accurate tooltips and traits would be a huge help.

But in general, I feel like GW2 is closer to balance than the PvP in most other MMOs out there for being 3-4 months into it’s lifespan, and that’s a very good sign. You can’t listen to the doomsday “they missed their chance” naysayers, they have selective memories. But there will always be people complaining about other classes being too good at something in any game where professions inherently are better at something in spite of being to build around those strengths/flaws, and because certain professions carry a certain learning curve as well, where others are more pick up and play.

I think the game is fairly balanced other than ele downstate and res signets…
Sure, Necro may do twice the dps as a thief as AoE, but it requires clutch positioning and awareness to do so. I’d like to see, however, other builds being buffed to par such as glass longbow ranger, grenade engi.
As the game is now, its pretty much whoever’s Necro is left standing wins. Just ignore every other class other than thief unless he gets in melee range (meaning he has a deathwish).

Actually I think the balance in GW2 is pretty poor as it’s clear they only balance for the top 25% and more-or-less disregard the bottom 75%, which I think is ultimately detrimental to the game. They did this in GW1 too, but at least there you had much more control over how you could build your character.

They could eg: decrease the damage of 100 blades by 15-25% but make it usable while moving, or decrease the upfront burst of backstab by 25% and add a bunch of stacks of bleeding with decreased CD — point being to soften the edges of some of the more obvious IWin-vs-noobs buttons while still keeping the overall power of the ability roughly the same.

MindlessRuff.1948:

Seether.7285:

I think an even better question to ask would be, if players were playing a theoretically perfectly balanced, yet complex game, would they recognize that it was balanced or would there be just as many complaints about balance?

While my question is pretty much rhetorical, I would bet that there would still be a forum full of cries about balance, since the average players perspective on balance is based on what they experience which is influenced by their choice of class, their level of play and any biases they may have.

**I am not saying GW2 is a perfectly balanced game or anywhere close to it, but I think that many of the whine posts regarding balance on these forums are completely unjustified.

100% percent agree on this.

While this isn’t necessarily a bad question to ask completely eludes the question I asked so…..

Jumper.9482:

I think the game is fairly balanced other than ele downstate and res signets…
Sure, Necro may do twice the dps as a thief as AoE, but it requires clutch positioning and awareness to do so… [snip] … As the game is now, its pretty much whoever’s Necro is left standing wins. Just ignore every other class other than thief unless he gets in melee range (meaning he has a deathwish).

Necro isnt a problem? Sounds like a big problem to me

TheGuy.3568:

MindlessRuff.1948:

Seether.7285:

I think an even better question to ask would be, if players were playing a theoretically perfectly balanced, yet complex game, would they recognize that it was balanced or would there be just as many complaints about balance?

While my question is pretty much rhetorical, I would bet that there would still be a forum full of cries about balance, since the average players perspective on balance is based on what they experience which is influenced by their choice of class, their level of play and any biases they may have.

**I am not saying GW2 is a perfectly balanced game or anywhere close to it, but I think that many of the whine posts regarding balance on these forums are completely unjustified.

100% percent agree on this.

While this isn’t necessarily a bad question to ask completely eludes the question I asked so…..

Not really since hes saying that if theoretically the game has 100% perfect balance mechanically, it would not matter because the forum would still be flooded by people who perceived imbalance issues when in reality they have no grounds to complain and are only whining based on subjective feelings of balance instead of worrying about objective and logical “balance”.

MindlessRuff.1948:

TheGuy.3568:

MindlessRuff.1948:

Seether.7285:

I think an even better question to ask would be, if players were playing a theoretically perfectly balanced, yet complex game, would they recognize that it was balanced or would there be just as many complaints about balance?

While my question is pretty much rhetorical, I would bet that there would still be a forum full of cries about balance, since the average players perspective on balance is based on what they experience which is influenced by their choice of class, their level of play and any biases they may have.

**I am not saying GW2 is a perfectly balanced game or anywhere close to it, but I think that many of the whine posts regarding balance on these forums are completely unjustified.

100% percent agree on this.

While this isn’t necessarily a bad question to ask completely eludes the question I asked so…..

Not really since hes saying that if theoretically the game has 100% perfect balance mechanically, it would not matter because the forum would still be flooded by people who perceived imbalance issues when in reality they have no grounds to complain and are only whining based on subjective feelings of balance instead of worrying about objective and logical “balance”.

You would need to define this logical “balance” as what your stating now is akin to saying no matter what you do their will still be complaints. Isn’t that a given?

DCUO is a good example of a pvp system with logical balance (rock paper scissors) that complaints still arose from for a number of reasons including class imbalance (in terms of population).

BTW logical balance does not go hand in hand with your with your near nihilistic views on class balancing. It’s just another way of saying “Everything is OK” or “L2P” veiled in high speech that’s sounds much like philosophy.

Also using a term like flooded is subjective.

That “class balance is possible but because players wouldn’t recognize it”, argument really gets my goat. We shouldn’t undermine the intelligence of those around us it’s disgusting.

Edit:

To add a point I missed about DCUO while its true balance was off due to pop over time it was balanced around hard counters where dps was the outlier. This game has very few hard counters. Its not so much about perception but factual counters. Is it possible with this game?

Pong was the only truly balanced game in the gaming history.

There is a huge difference in skill level between players. If the professions were balanced around the top players, then players with less skill may perceive some professions to be under powered. If the classes were balanced around new players then top players would perceive some professions to be overpowered. If an inexperienced player gets destroyed by a skilled player of a different professions then I think they would perceive an imbalance in the professions, regardless of whether they are balanced or not.

QQing is always going to happen, but I’m not sure you can objectively determine if the professions are balanced. Different builds have different strengths and weaknesses and the value of these is down to our subjective perception of them. At the very least, I don’t think game this complex can be considered to be balanced by everyone who plays it.

There will always be tiers in a game. Perfect balance is impossible in basically every game unless everyone is literally the same (Chess).

NaturalPortman.9562:

There will always be tiers in a game. Perfect balance is impossible in basically every game unless everyone is literally the same (Chess).

In chess, the player who goes first has a statistical advantage. Although that doesn’t necessarily guarantee victory, it’s an advantage still.

And to answer TC’s question, perfect balance is not achievable, ever. However, balance such that there are numerous, well established strategies and counters involved in the metagame is possible and should be the aim of this game. There will always be that one golden spec that is too effective at what it does, and when the nerfbat hits it another spec will take its place. Similarly, new specs and builds that are introduced or discovered by players can sometimes change the metagame, causing nerfs to the new spec or buffs to obsolete ones. Evidence of imbalances discovered by players is a sign that the metagame is constantly evolving and fresh, and thereby healthy.

With GW2, however, these imbalances occur too far to one extreme or another due to the game mode they chose. Coupled with low population and general lack of interest, you have a recipe for disaster.

TwoBit.5903:

NaturalPortman.9562:

There will always be tiers in a game. Perfect balance is impossible in basically every game unless everyone is literally the same (Chess).

In chess, the player who goes first has a statistical advantage. Although that doesn’t necessarily guarantee victory, it’s an advantage still.

And to answer TC’s question, perfect balance is not achievable, ever. However, balance such that there are numerous, well established strategies and counters involved in the metagame is possible and should be the aim of this game. There will always be that one golden spec that is too effective at what it does, and when the nerfbat hits it another spec will take its place. Similarly, new specs and builds that are introduced or discovered by players can sometimes change the metagame, causing nerfs to the new spec or buffs to obsolete ones. Evidence of imbalances discovered by players is a sign that the metagame is constantly evolving and fresh, and thereby healthy.

With GW2, however, these imbalances occur too far to one extreme or another due to the game mode they chose. Coupled with low population and general lack of interest, you have a recipe for disaster.

Think you hit the nail on the head. I would also like to ask if the type of match we have in Spvp is the main reason its unbalanced?

TheGuy.3568:

TwoBit.5903:

NaturalPortman.9562:

There will always be tiers in a game. Perfect balance is impossible in basically every game unless everyone is literally the same (Chess).

In chess, the player who goes first has a statistical advantage. Although that doesn’t necessarily guarantee victory, it’s an advantage still.

And to answer TC’s question, perfect balance is not achievable, ever. However, balance such that there are numerous, well established strategies and counters involved in the metagame is possible and should be the aim of this game. There will always be that one golden spec that is too effective at what it does, and when the nerfbat hits it another spec will take its place. Similarly, new specs and builds that are introduced or discovered by players can sometimes change the metagame, causing nerfs to the new spec or buffs to obsolete ones. Evidence of imbalances discovered by players is a sign that the metagame is constantly evolving and fresh, and thereby healthy.

With GW2, however, these imbalances occur too far to one extreme or another due to the game mode they chose. Coupled with low population and general lack of interest, you have a recipe for disaster.

Think you hit the nail on the head. I would also like to ask if the type of match we have in Spvp is the main reason its unbalanced?

It’s hard to say. I admittedly haven’t played too much PvP outside of WvW, since I don’t find conquest mode in its current incarnation to be too exciting. But to me it seems that there are multiple things at fault. I’d say that the overemphasis on build counters rather than strategic counters is one of them. Another factor could be that there’s little sense of progression within the same map other than a point. You’re either winning by holding points or you’re losing. The result is a bunker heavy meta, and to be perfectly honest it’s just boring. Players haven’t deviated from this because ANet hasn’t provided them with the option to.

What I think ANet could do is focus on adding in more options to players in the form strategies and counter strategies, and they need to add in lots of them. In multiplayer games, depth shouldn’t be based solely on the potency of player professions but by the strategies players employ with those professions. That said, I believe ANet should build these strategies into their maps, rather than swinging their nerfbats at classes based on the current bunker meta that resulted from their current maps in order to force players to find new strategies for them. It’ll take time on ANet’s part but I believe this to be the best solution. Additionally, with many different strategies for each profession to perform, I believe the devs would have the advantage of balancing professions on how well they can perform various roles required of them to pull off certain strategies, rather than on specific profession vs profession matchups, the latter of which seems much harder. This might even quiet some of the moaning on the forums as well as players right now are too focused on the shallow imbalances of individual matchups.

Another thing they could do is add some sort of progression to their matches which require teams to adapt and change their strategies. This is something I mentioned earlier because many multiplayer games such as TF2 and Dota employ this to great success; TF2 only has a few popular maps and Dota games only need to use one! The reason progression is effective is that promotes a type of poker game between teams and promotes reactionary strategies. In other words it helps create a more dynamic experience.

Even if they could make these builds relatively balanced, I would still prefer the method of starting out with more viable builds for each class (especially the fact that every class should be able to at least have a viable offensive condi build and viable offensive dd builds, which they do not all have atm). Like I wouldn’t want to always see a thief going burst DD, rather I would like to see more thief maybe going conditional builds where the build itself is not about just getting close behind someone and do a butt load of damage, yet maybe we can see a thief play a more teamplay role with this other build requiring sustainability; that ise more complex in terms of mechanics, but being equal or more in terms of how rewarding it is. I would even love it if a thief could become a dedicated conditional remover or healer, even though that might seem weird for a thief. In fact, I strongly believe that every class should ultimately be able to have every type of builds other classes have so that everyone can experience a particular build on any class they pick, although let it be that all these homogeneous builds functions slightly different in terms of mechanics.

IMO, the best condition removers right now are the Eles. and Guardians. Although, what I’m suggesting is that – maybe a ‘warrior’ could be a more aggressive type of condition remover. That way, we can get to see more interesting match-ups in-game, and it’s not always “warrior vs conditions”.

To be totally honest, I’m really hoping that Anet would consider doing this in the near future, for the sake of bringing out more fun to PvP strats. Would it be hard to balance? Yes. Although would it be worth the effort for PvP in the long wrong? I definitely think so, as long as… they just don’t let a single skill be used in more possibilities than it was intended for (watching out for the bugs), and I suggest that it can be done with proper traits limitations set upon those skills. But yah, I would absolutely be much more happier if they would introduce each class with more viable builds by taking a bigger step in their balance schemes. That’s the one balance possibility that I would like to see make possible in the near future.

With competent developers, sure.

LoL manages pretty good balance with over one hundred champions and dozens of items.

With the current developers: No. They have proven themselves to be only interesting in increasing the imbalances in this game.

I give money (to a charity) for them to post the stats showing Engineers needed nerfing and Warriors and Thieves needed buffs.

Perfect balance? No that’s not possible.

Better balance then we have now? Absolutely.

It requires the balance team drop this “we change things slowly attitude” and get to fixing the obvious issues.

I think it’s very possible for the game to develop a strong(er) balance, but it seems like it’s going to have to take some new developers. The outright contradiction between the Elementalist and Engineer philosophies doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the current designers.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Self-contradictory-philosophy/first#post1006633