Guild Wars 2

Players can choose to play a hard spec or an easy and broken spec, what Anet can do is try to balance the broken spec.
A lot of players chose to run bunker warrior just to win tournament and rank farming, u can find that top 1~200 have a lot of bunker warrior, which is really sad. So tell me http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-sF-Cx;0NKVP0O4gLVQ0;9;6TT9;428748A4;087X7C;1TsW6TsW63Nn this build is not broken at all, try to run it and tell me what’s the skill required on this build? Just spam all ur cd and kite around, and u can be in top 200 too.
Why don’t people just run spec like caed’s 30 trickery, supcutie’s shatter mes, OE’s engineer, CMC’s ele, those are really hard spec. Instead of this, people tend to run bunker warrior, spirit ranger, condimancer and some other broken specs. Why? they are just ruining PVP community.
It’s not fun when u are running a high skill cap spec and lost to a decent player that run low skill cap spec, and fighting all those stupid bunker all of the time.
As CMC mentioned in his stream that he’s running d/d instead of s/d, simply because s/d is a broken mechanic, and he explained alot of things of s/d and d/d. I really have huge respect to those players who run higher skill cap spec.
Seriously, to those players whoever still running those specs are S tier kitten E S in the game.

Let me provide you with a tl;dr

The players choose to play broken/cheese specs in order to glory farm and win tournaments. This cheapens the overall gameplay if the only viable builds are broken/cheese. The players are directly contributing to the poor state of the game by choosing to play these specs.

I agree 100%.

No it is bad design. If there is an overpowered build players will use it. Designers know this better than anyone. So they should design the game without OP specs, easier said than done, I agree.

But players will chose the path of least resistance, your should design your game for that.

Ok, here is the things, all those hard spec can only run effectively when player mastered it and it take times to learn. Whereas all those broken build can be run effectively by anyone without any knowledge of the build.

Xcom.1926:

No it is bad design. If there is an overpowered build players will use it. Designers know this better than anyone. So they should design the game without OP specs, easier said than done, I agree.

But players will chose the path of least resistance, your should design your game for that.

Wrong. Its called integrity, and I have it. Thankfully, I am not alone in my choice to not play broken or cheese builds. Does it make the game harder? Of course it does, but we earn our kills.

The players have more control over the state of the game than they realize. Once they stop using the builds, and collectively incentivize others to not use the problem builds, we can move forward with the pieces of the game that we do enjoy.

Its always going to be like this though, you can blame the player but you have to blame anet for making it so easy for people to be cheesy. Everyone plays games to relax (get away from real life), they want wins because its the enjoyable part of pvp but at the same time they want to make it as easy for themselves as they can to win.

All it takes is a few people to abuse the overpowered class/builds and then all of a sudden everyone is following in their footsteps. What i hate is random people abusing other players for ‘playing ele/mesmer’ in thinking that because they play easy to play OP classes they have a somewhat superior skill advantage.

They should give underpowered builds (staff elementalist, scepter mesmers and others) double the exp/glory/mmr bonus, might give people more incentive to try play them (and then again maybe not). Heck, staff elementalists should get triple the bonus in its current state!

Psychogene.6780:

Its always going to be like this though, you can blame the player but you have to blame anet for making it so easy for people to be cheesy. Everyone plays games to relax (get away from real life), they want wins because its the enjoyable part of pvp but at the same time they want to make it as easy for themselves as they can to win.

All it takes is a few people to abuse the overpowered class/builds and then all of a sudden everyone is following in their footsteps. What i hate is random people abusing other players for ‘playing ele/mesmer’ in thinking that because they play easy to play OP classes they have a somewhat superior skill advantage.

They should give underpowered builds (staff elementalist, scepter mesmers and others) double the exp/glory/mmr bonus, might give people more incentive to try play them (and then again maybe not). Heck, staff elementalists should get triple the bonus in its current state!

Anet is mostly to blame, but that doesn’t excuse the players. I have personally played with top (at the time) players and teams who would use the dirtiest tricks in order to squeeze a win out. Made me never want to play with them.

I do agree that Anet does play the role of enabler though.

Hammerheart.1426:

Wrong. Its called integrity, and I have it. Thankfully, I am not alone in my choice to not play broken or cheese builds. Does it make the game harder? Of course it does, but we earn our kills.

That’s nice, but it doesn’t matter what you are. You don’t design games with the basis of all all players having “integrity”, that would be foolish. Players just take the path to least resistance, and developers have to develop for that.

Xcom.1926:

Hammerheart.1426:

Wrong. Its called integrity, and I have it. Thankfully, I am not alone in my choice to not play broken or cheese builds. Does it make the game harder? Of course it does, but we earn our kills.

That’s nice, but it doesn’t matter what you are. You don’t design games with the basis of all all players having “integrity”, that would be foolish. Players just take the path to least resistance, and developers have to develop for that.

Your statement that players just take the path of least resistance is false.

Hammerheart.1426:

Your statement that players just take the path of least resistance is false.

No, it’s really not false. What happens when a team loses because they can’t play these “hard builds” that well? They either keep trying or play something easier and give themselves a better opportunity to win. They themselves might not even see these other builds as being “easier,” but either way it doesn’t matter. You can’t just realistically convince people to not play these builds, as long as people are playing the game competitively.

Sorry, but there’s nothing else to really say.

Hammerheart.1426:

Xcom.1926:

No it is bad design. If there is an overpowered build players will use it. Designers know this better than anyone. So they should design the game without OP specs, easier said than done, I agree.

But players will chose the path of least resistance, your should design your game for that.

Wrong. Its called integrity, and I have it. Thankfully, I am not alone in my choice to not play broken or cheese builds. Does it make the game harder? Of course it does, but we earn our kills.

The players have more control over the state of the game than they realize. Once they stop using the builds, and collectively incentivize others to not use the problem builds, we can move forward with the pieces of the game that we do enjoy.

Integrity? Let’s not try get e-noble here.

That is like not accepting money because you don’t want handouts. Someone will get the money, and you will be SOL. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

You keep your pride there buddy.

ANET created something that needs to be fixed, that is all. Humans will always choose the easiest most effective route.

If I wanted to make 30k a year, I could be a manager at Mcdonalds, but what you are saying is like saying I want to go get my PHD to make 30k a year doing social work. Acting like your 30k is somehow worth more than my 30k

Such a stupid statement to make. Let me hinder myself by purposely choosing a worse off spec to get facerolled by noobs all day, cool story bro.

Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire. People will always choose the cheese in life, deal with it.

I main mesmer btw.

FancyNancy.6709:

Players can choose to play a hard spec or an easy and broken spec, what Anet can do is try to balance the broken spec.
A lot of players chose to run bunker warrior just to win tournament and rank farming, u can find that top 1~200 have a lot of bunker warrior, which is really sad. So tell me http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-sF-Cx;0NKVP0O4gLVQ0;9;6TT9;428748A4;087X7C;1TsW6TsW63Nn this build is not broken at all, try to run it and tell me what’s the skill required on this build? Just spam all ur cd and kite around, and u can be in top 200 too.
Why don’t people just run spec like caed’s 30 trickery, supcutie’s shatter mes, OE’s engineer, CMC’s ele, those are really hard spec. Instead of this, people tend to run bunker warrior, spirit ranger, condimancer and some other broken specs. Why? they are just ruining PVP community.
It’s not fun when u are running a high skill cap spec and lost to a decent player that run low skill cap spec, and fighting all those stupid bunker all of the time.
As CMC mentioned in his stream that he’s running d/d instead of s/d, simply because s/d is a broken mechanic, and he explained alot of things of s/d and d/d. I really have huge respect to those players who run higher skill cap spec.
Seriously, to those players whoever still running those specs are S tier kitten E S in the game.

Divinity.8041:

Hammerheart.1426:

Xcom.1926:

No it is bad design. If there is an overpowered build players will use it. Designers know this better than anyone. So they should design the game without OP specs, easier said than done, I agree.

But players will chose the path of least resistance, your should design your game for that.

Wrong. Its called integrity, and I have it. Thankfully, I am not alone in my choice to not play broken or cheese builds. Does it make the game harder? Of course it does, but we earn our kills.

The players have more control over the state of the game than they realize. Once they stop using the builds, and collectively incentivize others to not use the problem builds, we can move forward with the pieces of the game that we do enjoy.

Integrity? Let’s not try get e-noble here.

That is like not accepting money because you don’t want handouts. Someone will get the money, and you will be SOL. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

You keep your pride there buddy.

ANET created something that needs to be fixed, that is all. Humans will always choose the easiest most effective route.

If I wanted to make 30k a year, I could be a manager at Mcdonalds, but what you are saying is like saying I want to go get my PHD to make 30k a year doing social work. Acting like your 30k is somehow worth more than my 30k

Such a stupid statement to make. Let me hinder myself by purposely choosing a worse off spec to get facerolled by noobs all day, cool story bro.

Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire. People will always choose the cheese in life, deal with it.

I main mesmer btw.

You sound like you need every possible advantage to not look like a fool. Sucks to be you I guess.

People don’t always choose the cheese in life, thats a kittening kittened statement.

“Everyone dopes in baseball, so I guess I will too because its easier!”

It isn’t war, its a game. I don’t get facerolled by noobs using the cheesiest broken build because I have the skill to back up the playstyle I enjoy. So keep that cheese kitten to yourself, and continue to know that the only reason you kill someone isn’t because you’re skilled, its because you’re buying into the hype.

Both sides of this argument are correct. People do ruin the game more by using/abusing cheese builds.

That does not mean it’s entirely the playerbase at fault here. ANet’s responsibility is to fix the broken things in PVP. Namely traits that don’t work, runes that don’t work, sigils that are broken, builds that require 0 skill, etc.

Prime example? Stunlock warriors. Second example? Spirit Ranger. Both of those require zero skill to play effectively at a tournament level. Sure I could go for a more skill-based build, but why is anybody going to hamper their team by trying something different? People don’t want to be ‘THAT GUY’ and they don’t want to be the reason a team loses a match. So they take the easy way out.

This is a silly argument.

It’s a competitive game, people are going to play what wins games. Maybe it’s a little cheesy, but you can’t fault someone for playing to win… that’s literally the point.

When you add in E-sports and cash prizes, its just plain stupid to not play the most effective spec you can – it’s Anet’s job to make sure that those specs aren’t broken or too cheesy.

Then u’re the lil kitten that wont have my respect
And in the list of S tier kittenes

Hammerheart.1426:

Divinity.8041:

Hammerheart.1426:

Xcom.1926:

No it is bad design. If there is an overpowered build players will use it. Designers know this better than anyone. So they should design the game without OP specs, easier said than done, I agree.

But players will chose the path of least resistance, your should design your game for that.

Wrong. Its called integrity, and I have it. Thankfully, I am not alone in my choice to not play broken or cheese builds. Does it make the game harder? Of course it does, but we earn our kills.

The players have more control over the state of the game than they realize. Once they stop using the builds, and collectively incentivize others to not use the problem builds, we can move forward with the pieces of the game that we do enjoy.

Integrity? Let’s not try get e-noble here.

That is like not accepting money because you don’t want handouts. Someone will get the money, and you will be SOL. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

You keep your pride there buddy.

ANET created something that needs to be fixed, that is all. Humans will always choose the easiest most effective route.

If I wanted to make 30k a year, I could be a manager at Mcdonalds, but what you are saying is like saying I want to go get my PHD to make 30k a year doing social work. Acting like your 30k is somehow worth more than my 30k

Such a stupid statement to make. Let me hinder myself by purposely choosing a worse off spec to get facerolled by noobs all day, cool story bro.

Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire. People will always choose the cheese in life, deal with it.

I main mesmer btw.

You sound like you need every possible advantage to not look like a fool. Sucks to be you I guess.

People don’t always choose the cheese in life, thats a kittening kittened statement.

“Everyone dopes in baseball, so I guess I will too because its easier!”

It isn’t war, its a game. I don’t get facerolled by noobs using the cheesiest broken build because I have the skill to back up the playstyle I enjoy. So keep that cheese kitten to yourself, and continue to know that the only reason you kill someone isn’t because you’re skilled, its because you’re buying into the hype.

Yes, because mesmers are so leet right now, are you serious kid?
Notice how employers are cutting employees back to 30 hours or less, for them to not count as full time to pay for health care? <—- cheese, cheese wins and saves money, this is human nature. The companies did not think, oh screw it let me have some integrity and lose money on full time employees by offering them healthcare because they work more than 30 hours a week, they adapted to the environment to win. Winning in this case = making more money.

evilapprentice.6379:

This is a silly argument.

It’s a competitive game, people are going to play what wins games. Maybe it’s a little cheesy, but you can’t fault someone for playing to win… that’s literally the point.

When you add in E-sports and cash prizes, its just plain stupid to not play the most effective spec you can – it’s Anet’s job to make sure that those specs aren’t broken or too cheesy.

I could not have said it better myself. The reason I don’t mesmer in tpvp is because at the moment, everyone will blame me for a loss, or be like, free kill etc. mesmer and ele are basically not represented that highly in the tourney scene, although helseth did just win #1 in the last MLG tourney as a shatter mes. Weeeee

But yeah, why hamper your team with a sub-tier class when you can simply have a better profession and bring more to the table.

We are here to WIN, not to e-pride because you think you are so high and mighty with your high skill cap build doing average in spvp. We are here to win…not to whine.

I have to agree with Divinity. But the problem lies with A-net, if at the very least they are the only ones who can do anything about it. But it’s unrealistic to think players won’t run the cheapest easiest thing to win. That being said I don’t think it’s about being cheap and easy. I feel like it’s a Rock, Paper, Scissors game forced into a 5 v 5 with positioning determining what beats what. (And IMO that is terrible)

As stupid as the cheese war buid is, a good shatter Mesmer can win if atleast force it off point (even if the mes has to try harder than the war) But Hey! now mes is more viable than being up against 4 rangers or necros with one guardian. /rolls eyes

Really the game needs to move towards the direction of everyone has a fair fight I get that something will not always be 50/50 but 35/65 is still pretty fair and makes 5v5s MUCH more dynamic and reliant on team cooperation.

It might be the worst idea in the world but my solution is to either buff things that are harder to succeed, so that they feel like your risk is worth your reward. Or keep nerfing the passive and spam play so it’s ultimetly not as effective as reactionary or calculated play. Passive play would still be viable if maybe in different tiers of competitive play, but this raises the skill cap and keeps the option still open depending on comp.

Tl;Dr Skill in vs Power out should be the balance teams main focus. Please A-net take that to heart.

Side thought: Also teams running one of something even if it’s cheese isn’t to bad, maybe there should be some sort of diversity clause that makes builds need to be atleast 30 trait points different than another build of the same class?

hammerheart

The players have more control over the state of the game than they realize. Once they stop using the builds, and collectively incentivize others to not use the problem builds, we can move forward with the pieces of the game that we do enjoy.

Do you have any idea how ignorant this is?

That is like saying we need to tell others to collectively stop using gas because it is hurting the environment, only then we will be able to stop global warming. LOL YEAH RIGHT.

Or if there was 1 open field and 5 people living on it with no rules, do you unite and equally graze the land? No, everyone will try to get as much as they can for themselves, or over graze the land effectively destroying themselves. It is human nature, you should just accept it.

You are being WAY too idealistic.

Let me stop using builds that allow me to WIN as a % more, than use builds that don’t make me win as a % more…that makes great sense bro!

Like I said earlier, I main mesmer because I love them, but I don’t hate on people for finding how to win, people who complain about those are just bad losers who are jealous.

It is like the people in life who say you don’t need networking, merit gets you work.

Anyone in the working world knows it is who you know, not what you know. The people who differ with this utterly true statement just don’t know anyone lol.

This topic has been on my mind for months. I always wondered why the community at large couldn’t just say “No one play Necromancers with Dhuumfire or Terror or Warriors with Paralyzation till they fix them”. I believe the LoL community bans certain heroes for tournaments so why can’t we ban certain specs?

Dirame.8521:

This topic has been on my mind for months. I always wondered why the community at large couldn’t just say “No one play Necromancers with Dhuumfire or Terror or Warriors with Paralyzation till they fix them”. I believe the LoL community bans certain heroes for tournaments so why can’t we ban certain specs?

Because this game doesn’t currently have the spec diversity to ban anything at the moment.

Not that I agree with the overall sentiment per say, but it isn’t even worth discussing when classes have so few options as it is.

I’m pretty sure the player who run cheesy build will get bored soon and quit the game, because most of the time they just spamming their cd without using their brain, whereas ppl who run high cap skill spec will need to do alot of thinking and careful when they engage and stuff like that so which is actually pretty fun. But i still cant stand those kitten who can actually play those stupid build like thousands matches and get farmed in leaderboard what a shame.

As much as I agree with OP in principal, that is imho not how the world works. If you are ignoring the power of least common denominator, then you are cheating yourself.

Masses are generally ignorant and not caring; it is fine, that you choose the higher ground, but don’t expect any reward other than the satisfaction from doing it. I mean … look at the climate (to name the obvious). For how long have we known this? Ages (in scientific circles it is really for ages). But that is ofc not our concern, it will just affect someone else. The reason is ofc, that the truth is inconvenient; it is even worse, if it turned out, that we ignored the obvious.

And again: Having your mediocre skills as player being revealed is not pleasant either; it is much more comfortable to play a build, that has a less chance for that to happen. That is how we are.

Skill means nothing against cheese.

you could be the very best player, play perfectly against lets say a warrior, dodge every stun, deal damage and almost kill him, then 1 stun is all it takes for an average warrior to kill you

is not that people don’t wanna run skilled builds, is just that cheese will always be more effective than actual skill, Anet has focuses so much into making the game braindead easy, they haven’t made any effort to improve/reward skillful game play.

Skill means nothing against cheese.

you could be the very best player, play perfectly against lets say a warrior, dodge every stun, deal damage and almost kill him, then 1 stun is all it takes for an average warrior to kill you

is not that people don’t wanna run skilled builds, is just that cheese will always be more effective than actual skill, Anet has focuses so much into making the game braindead easy, they haven’t made any effort to improve/reward skillful game play.

Hammerheart.1426:

Let me provide you with a tl;dr

The players choose to play broken/cheese specs in order to glory farm and win tournaments. This cheapens the overall gameplay if the only viable builds are broken/cheese. The players are directly contributing to the poor state of the game by choosing to play these specs.

I agree 100%.

The devs create a game for the players, if the players end up hating it, the devs have to adapt and change the game… i mean, or let it die…

Here, I’ll take it back a step,People loved GW2, people wanted to like GW2, GW2 had the biggest hype and influx of players out of any MMO I’ve seen. That combined with there being no other good MMO for PvP out right now… that means the game got the greatest ‘trying to like’ from the playerbase possible.
If you expect more you’re in wonderland.

What it comes down to is consumer entertainment, that’s what video games are for, sure you can fault people for not avoiding the cheese/terribly made parts of PvP… but that is just stupid. People like to win so most people will play specs aimed at doing that… if Anet can’t build an MMO with that in mind Anet can’t build an MMO.

If they are fine with the game as is, they don’t mind punishing players who want to enjoy a game’s gameplay… who want depth… they are no dev team worth playing a game made by.

Poxxia.1547:

And again: Having your mediocre skills as player being revealed is not pleasant either; it is much more comfortable to play a build, that has a less chance for that to happen. That is how we are.

This is an interesting idea that nobody above has said yet. Of course, if you play easy mode builds just so no one can see how unskilled you are, they will know how unskilled you are anyway just because of the build you are using. “Oh sprt rangr he muzt have very littel skillz but he wil kil me anyway lolz.” However, if they never try harder builds, they will never get better. It really is quite sad.

Why would I want to play an elementalist where I have to work 3 times more to be on par with an average player in another class?

That the problem with this game, they are some classes that are just too good not to play them, and if you are trying to win which is all that matters in the long run then you would be a kitten fool to not play those OP classes.

silvermember.8941:

Why would I want to play an elementalist where I have to work 3 times more to be on par with an average player in another class?

That the problem with this game, they are some classes that are just too good not to play them, and if you are trying to win which is all that matters in the long run then you would be a kitten fool to not play those OP classes.

sry this post is not for hotjoin players or any low level pvp players

Here is a quote from Playing to Win, which you can read for free on Sirlin.net

“So what lengths should a player go to in order to win? A player should use any tournament legal move available to him that maximizes his chances of winning the game. Whether certain moves or tactics should be legal in a tournament is a totally separate issue that we’ll get to later. For now, the issue at hand is that if it’s legal in a tournament, it’s part of the game, period. Players often fault other players for “cheating” or playing “dishonestly” when they use tactics that should not be allowed in a tournament, often because they are exploits of bugs. The player is never at fault. The player is merely trying to win with all tools available to him and should not be expected to pull his punches. Complaints should be taken up with the governing body of the tournament (or the community of players) as to what should be allowed in a tournament. This is a dead simple issue that confuses too many players.”

The point being if you’re not “cheesing” then you’re not taking advantage of the resources available to you that are superior to your “skill build.” While you might get better by practicing more difficult things, why would you give that edge up? Morality?

There are no morals involved in winning in any competitive game – if there’s an advantage you take it. Period.

kaikalii.4198:

Poxxia.1547:

And again: Having your mediocre skills as player being revealed is not pleasant either; it is much more comfortable to play a build, that has a less chance for that to happen. That is how we are.

This is an interesting idea that nobody above has said yet. Of course, if you play easy mode builds just so no one can see how unskilled you are, they will know how unskilled you are anyway just because of the build you are using. “Oh sprt rangr he muzt have very littel skillz but he wil kil me anyway lolz.” However, if they never try harder builds, they will never get better. It really is quite sad.

Heh .. that is actually interesting, since that gives an excuse to loose to a cheesy build “just because it is cheesy”. Hence a good player playing a cheesy build can never be good if you have that mindset. Not sure, if I should cry or laugh at times.
Yes, I tend to be a bit cynical at times.

There is no point in handicapping yourself on purpose. I don’t mind playing my favorite build if it is not the most overpowered build, but I don’t like to put myself in a position to work extra hard to get kills. Bunker warrior is in very good position right now, minimal effort, maximum wins. Why would you NOT play it? For the challenge?

Excalibur.9748:

There is no point in handicapping yourself on purpose. I don’t mind playing my favorite build if it is not the most overpowered build, but I don’t like to put myself in a position to work extra hard to get kills. Bunker warrior is in very good position right now, minimal effort, maximum wins. Why would you NOT play it? For the challenge?

1 of the example of S tier kitten

FancyNancy.6709:

Excalibur.9748:

There is no point in handicapping yourself on purpose. I don’t mind playing my favorite build if it is not the most overpowered build, but I don’t like to put myself in a position to work extra hard to get kills. Bunker warrior is in very good position right now, minimal effort, maximum wins. Why would you NOT play it? For the challenge?

1 of the example of S tier kitten

I agree with Fancy here. The entire reason I play PvP is because it is challenging. To me playing things like bunker warrior is just as boring as PvE. I want an interesting, dynamic play style where losing is a substantial possibility.

kaikalii.4198:

FancyNancy.6709:

Excalibur.9748:

There is no point in handicapping yourself on purpose. I don’t mind playing my favorite build if it is not the most overpowered build, but I don’t like to put myself in a position to work extra hard to get kills. Bunker warrior is in very good position right now, minimal effort, maximum wins. Why would you NOT play it? For the challenge?

1 of the example of S tier kitten

I agree with Fancy here. The entire reason I play PvP is because it is challenging. To me playing things like bunker warrior is just as boring as PvE. I want an interesting, dynamic play style where losing is a substantial possibility.

I play for fun and winning is fun for me.

Excalibur.9748:

kaikalii.4198:

FancyNancy.6709:

Excalibur.9748:

There is no point in handicapping yourself on purpose. I don’t mind playing my favorite build if it is not the most overpowered build, but I don’t like to put myself in a position to work extra hard to get kills. Bunker warrior is in very good position right now, minimal effort, maximum wins. Why would you NOT play it? For the challenge?

1 of the example of S tier kitten

I agree with Fancy here. The entire reason I play PvP is because it is challenging. To me playing things like bunker warrior is just as boring as PvE. I want an interesting, dynamic play style where losing is a substantial possibility.

I play for fun and winning is fun for me.

Fair enough. To each their own I guess. :\

@op that makes no sense…
If you have a Ferrari and a smart, which one would you take to a race?

a) the little smart because it will be a big challange and its almost impossible to win.
b) take the Ferrari and have a good chance to win.

It is obvious that every one will play the spec that provides more chances of wining! no one likes to lose. it is A-net’s job to make sure that there are a variety of specs with similar viability and not just 1 per profession or in some cases zero.

Those hard spec is actually strong as well, but they take times to learn and master, whereas stupid build take no effort to learn or whatever and can even beat top player

FancyNancy.6709:

Those hard spec is actually strong as well, but they take times to learn and master, whereas stupid build take no effort to learn or whatever and can even beat top player

Now what happens when you put a TOP player on a spec that even the lowest common denominator can do well in?

The best you could possibly spin it for A-net is that it is both the players fault and A-nets fault. There is nothing that absolves A-net from allowing cheese builds. Its there job to balance the games properly. It not my job to make sure I play a balanced spec I am well within my rights to play any build A-net allows. If it is detrimental to the game that is A-nets fault not mine. Nice stockholm syndrome type post though.

jmatb.6307:

Here is a quote from Playing to Win, which you can read for free on Sirlin.net

“So what lengths should a player go to in order to win? A player should use any tournament legal move available to him that maximizes his chances of winning the game. Whether certain moves or tactics should be legal in a tournament is a totally separate issue that we’ll get to later. For now, the issue at hand is that if it’s legal in a tournament, it’s part of the game, period. Players often fault other players for “cheating” or playing “dishonestly” when they use tactics that should not be allowed in a tournament, often because they are exploits of bugs. The player is never at fault. The player is merely trying to win with all tools available to him and should not be expected to pull his punches. Complaints should be taken up with the governing body of the tournament (or the community of players) as to what should be allowed in a tournament. This is a dead simple issue that confuses too many players.”

The point being if you’re not “cheesing” then you’re not taking advantage of the resources available to you that are superior to your “skill build.” While you might get better by practicing more difficult things, why would you give that edge up? Morality?

There are no morals involved in winning in any competitive game – if there’s an advantage you take it. Period.

Other games moderate the game be it by a restrictive nature like bans in LoL, or clauses in Pokemon. Or by buffs and nerfs.

We however wait so long and stay in stagnation. Even excluding the tournaments holding things back, when changes are made A-net waits for “the meta to adapt” only to find one specific build on a specific profession that counters it (while being even easier to play and loses nothing for team viability. Derr… Balance?!) and this just perpetuates more Rock, Paper, Crap.

I don’t believe players are at fault for this but nothing is essencitally being done about it. Unless some community based standard like the way Smogen is or Pokemon is created for people to follow before we can declare BS it should be A-nets job to step in, they want an E-sport don’t they?

My point is yes you are right. But for the sake of a healthy competitive game is the status quo really what we want?

If you play SoloQ and decide to run a “hard” build, chances are you are screwing over your teammates by running something that is an inferior build. It’s different than say, 64 man Battlefield where it’s not a big deal of you run a weapon/kit that is considered weaker than average. In most BF games you are a single guy in a large battle and so long as you are gong for the objective, you are useful. In GW2 PvP there’s only 5 per side, one guy running a weak build can mean a lost team battle.

Also, there is not a single class/build in this game that is “hard” to play by most people’s standards. This isn’t Counter Strike, it takes very little effort to learn any class. Engi and ele can be a bit overwhelming with how many skills they have, but it still doesn’t take that long to adjust. Yes, some specs are fairly simple to learn and to be moderately successful with, but PvP isn’t about the individual player.

It’s about the team.

I see far too many people judging what is OP or UP based on how a build preforms in 1v1, when the game isn’t balanced around duels. Think about how a build impacts team fights. A mace/shield + gs warrior is certainly strong 1v1, but in a team fight a hambow build is much more useful, but it isn’t very mobile and can’t escape quickly when focused.

As someone who plays both warrior and guardian, I still consider guardian bunkers to be far superior. The regen may be high, but they lack protection and other mechanics such as invulnerability, warriors also have less blocks. So yes, while it’s easier to play I would much rather have a guardian over a warrior bunker on my team.

The whole concept of “cheese” builds is also baffling in this game. A warrior using it’s class mechanic is “cheesy?” A ranger using its utility skills, at the cost of a stun breaker/stability, is “cheesy?” Traditionally, something that is cheesing is using a high risk/high reward tactic. It may result in an easy win, but if it fails chances are you’ve lost. A cheesy tactic in GW2 would be running all spirit rangers, hambow warriors, or maybe something as silly as all turret engis. Using a strong combo to its fullest effect isn’t cheese by my definition.

Chances are GW2 will eventually settle into a sort of “standard” team composition of Necro, Warrior, Mesmer/Thief, and Guardian, with the last player being up to the team. All these classes are the best fit for a certain role. I think that ele needs to have the option to be as strong a bunker as guardian, and perhaps engi as well. With the last spot being the teams choice they could decide to take a double of another class, which will mean that there is still plenty of room for interesting strategies to develop. “Should we take another spirit ranger? Maybe a second mesmer with a different build?” What they decide to take may give them an advantage over another team, or it could put them at a disadvantage.

Edit: I’d also like to add that the existence of easier to use builds is a good thing. It allows newcomers to come in and experience some form of success. The mistake many games make though is that they this accessible thing OP. As a result good players use it and dominate. To bring up BF3 again, many of the assault rifles, especially the M16A3, were simply better than most other weapons. Many guns were actually fairly well balanced, it’s just these few standout guns that were statically above the others that led to the majority of the playerbase using them. A better option would have been to have these “newbi” guns have low recoil/spread but less damage and a longer reload.

GW2 doesn’t have this issue, at least not to the extent of my example. Yes, there are some strong, easy to use builds. However, every one of these builds has a viable counter out there, it’s just that few are choosing to counter the current class on trial, warrior.

Yeah I don’t buy this thread at all.

First, the OP implies that high skillcap builds should have an advantage over low skillcap builds. That is absolute garbage. Some things are easier to play than others. The solution isn’t to make the harder-to-play things stronger, it’s to make the harder-to-play things as accessible as the other builds. QoL changes go a long way towards this. You do not get the right to win fights because you pick something that is hard to play, and you do not get the right to complain when you lose because of the build you have chosen. If you were that ill-prepared for the fight, skillcap isn’t your problem, building properly for what you will face is your problem.

Let’s not even mention that using that term skillcap at all is laughable, because it implies that everyone playing is the best player ever at that thing. Absolutely not true. You can’t talk about skillcap being a factor when virtually no one is at the skillcap. Yes, even for “lower skillcap” builds, there are huge differences between the best players and average players. If you begin to think for even a second that all you do is spam every cooldown you have no matter what freakin’ build it is, you’re pretty solidly average, in much the same way a button masher can luck his way into wins in a fighting game. I would say part of skillcap is knowing when to engage and not to engage, so putting yourself in position where you’re either wasting time, or straight up losing, against a bunker build is something you have to realize you can’t afford to do in conquest.

Knock all this nonsense off.

Hammerheart.1426:

You sound like you need every possible advantage to not look like a fool. Sucks to be you I guess.

People don’t always choose the cheese in life, thats a kittening kittened statement.

“Everyone dopes in baseball, so I guess I will too because its easier!”

Bad comparison. These players are not cheating, it is all within the rules. Hacking could be compared to doping.

A better comparison would be this, while playing baseball if you knew a certain type of bat, caused you to hit 50% more home runs than the average bat. You can bet that 95%+ of all players would be using that bat. Eventually the MLB would try and ban those bats, just like the NBA has banned several sneakers in the past. Those would be the “balance” changes.

I am sure would be some players that had “integrity” to use the regular bat. But it wouldn’t be the norm by any means.

Hammerheart.1426:

Xcom.1926:

No it is bad design. If there is an overpowered build players will use it. Designers know this better than anyone. So they should design the game without OP specs, easier said than done, I agree.

But players will chose the path of least resistance, your should design your game for that.

Wrong. Its called integrity, and I have it. Thankfully, I am not alone in my choice to not play broken or cheese builds. Does it make the game harder? Of course it does, but we earn our kills.

The players have more control over the state of the game than they realize. Once they stop using the builds, and collectively incentivize others to not use the problem builds, we can move forward with the pieces of the game that we do enjoy.

Hammerheart, whoever you are. You are never going to convince everyone to NOT play something that is broken, this has been the case for everything broken in every video game ever. It’s never going to happen. This is a problem by design, the longer the problem exists is the longer that it’s abused. You can sit here all day and try and prove me otherwise, but as long as someone plays a “cheesy build” and they are aware of their own doing, then you lose the debate. Sadly I wish you were right, but you are not.

The problems of Spvp solely fall into the laps of the devs. If they can make it, they can break it. And if they can break it, then surely they can fix it. And if they can’t, then this isn’t the game for me “obviously since I already left the game”. I’ll go back to the routine of checking in every couple months in hopes or something better. But until then, I’m not logging in.

Countless

Daishi.6027:

jmatb.6307:

Here is a quote from Playing to Win, which you can read for free on Sirlin.net

“So what lengths should a player go to in order to win? A player should use any tournament legal move available to him that maximizes his chances of winning the game. Whether certain moves or tactics should be legal in a tournament is a totally separate issue that we’ll get to later. For now, the issue at hand is that if it’s legal in a tournament, it’s part of the game, period. Players often fault other players for “cheating” or playing “dishonestly” when they use tactics that should not be allowed in a tournament, often because they are exploits of bugs. The player is never at fault. The player is merely trying to win with all tools available to him and should not be expected to pull his punches. Complaints should be taken up with the governing body of the tournament (or the community of players) as to what should be allowed in a tournament. This is a dead simple issue that confuses too many players.”

The point being if you’re not “cheesing” then you’re not taking advantage of the resources available to you that are superior to your “skill build.” While you might get better by practicing more difficult things, why would you give that edge up? Morality?

There are no morals involved in winning in any competitive game – if there’s an advantage you take it. Period.

Other games moderate the game be it by a restrictive nature like bans in LoL, or clauses in Pokemon. Or by buffs and nerfs.

We however wait so long and stay in stagnation. Even excluding the tournaments holding things back, when changes are made A-net waits for “the meta to adapt” only to find one specific build on a specific profession that counters it (while being even easier to play and loses nothing for team viability. Derr… Balance?!) and this just perpetuates more Rock, Paper, Crap.

I don’t believe players are at fault for this but nothing is essencitally being done about it. Unless some community based standard like the way Smogen is or Pokemon is created for people to follow before we can declare BS it should be A-nets job to step in, they want an E-sport don’t they?

My point is yes you are right. But for the sake of a healthy competitive game is the status quo really what we want?

It doesn’t matter what we want. As long as there are winners and losers and the rules are clear, defined, and there is very little to no chance of manipulation of those rules then all bets are off.

Would banning / team comp limits help the game? Maybe. It doesn’t exist in the game though so until it does the only job we have as players is to find the strongest possible composition that fits the game mode and to win as often as possible.

If that isn’t your goal you will always be disappointed with any game you play. Winning is its own reward. I have given up on “playing for skill” or “playing for fun” or "anti-meta’ or whatever other imaginary rules that don’t matter.

Will I lose games? Sure, but I am not going to blame anybody but myself for not playing at a higher level. If my teammates are idiots then it’s my job to overcome that, get them to play better through what limited communication you have in solo queue, or, better yet, get a team together that we can all talk about what is working and what isn’t.

Nobody who plays the game decides what is balanced or boring though. There are winners and losers.

Anet is responsible for changing things up if it becomes as you say. Are you a fan of the game or do you play it to win?

Generally, bads lose to goods regardless of build. It is only frustrating when goods play garbage imo.

Sure, and LoL is a very popular game with a massive following. The rules are different and they are enjoying success.

If you’re attempting to play this game by those rules then does that not create an obstacle? Not saying you do personally, I have no idea, but expecting something to be different than it is = pointless to me.

I hated the balance in the game when I left, but the reality is every single game out there is going to have stuff that is “unfair,” “boring,” “easy mode,” “passive,” blah blah blah.

There’s no point in playing a competitive game without the intention to win against everyone you can or trying to make your own type of game that is not supported by the developer and takes up space.

@Eurantien I agree that good players will win vs. bad players but what is garbage? If it wins then it’s better than what it beats right?

This works like evolution. There are diversity within species. Under certain environment, certain organisms get selected/favoured. Idealists tend to make the mistake to try to eliminate variation in a species. In this case, it could mean hoping everyone has the same “integrity” value. This is highly unlikely. Then, as long as the current game environment favours cheese, those who won’t mind to use cheese to win will gain an advantage over those who value “integrity”. If it is unlikely to eliminate variation in human belief, then the only way to fix the problem is to change the game environment so that skill builds are favoured, which is developers’ responsibility.

By the way, I think it is a good thing that there are many players play the “cheese builds” because if majority don’t, there will still be some minority that do, and the developers probably won’t realize there is a balance problem, and the games won’t get fixed.