Guild Wars 2

LaronX.8079:

JonathanSharp.7094:

You guys know how we do it!

“When it’s ready”, indeed.

@ balance and splitting skills: Splitting the entire game into 2 (or 3, if you want to be technical: PvE, WvW, PvP) sets of #‘s creates a LOT of overhead in maintaining 3 sets of numbers. As most skills are fine across game types, it’s more efficient to split off problem skills and leave the majority of skills consistent across game types. It also means that people have a general sense of relative balance across all game types, and don’t have 2-3 sets of numbers to learn.

So basically what you did in Gw1. Very good. Just do what you learned from that game an it’ll be good.

They choose not to learn from their previous developers/ management for some reason.

JonathanSharp.7094:

@:“Is sPvP ever going to be more than Conquest?”

Yes.

@: Balance: it’s something we’re definitely keeping in mind as we experiment with different game types. Some things carry over just fine from Conquest, others become weaker, and others become stronger. It’s inherent/to be expected in having different goals in different game modes.

I can’t give out too much info, but I can let you know that we are working on a new game mode.

Im glad we’ve had a response, its just that I really want something new. Conquest has been good but I feel like especially at the 2 year mark were going overboard a bit. I just don’t like seeing people get burnout in pvp because there is only 1 mode available.

LaronX.8079:

So basically what you did in Gw1. Very good. Just do what you learned from that game an it’ll be good.

On that particular subject, it’s probably quite the opposite : they learned from the previous game that having 3 sets of skills to balance was a nightmare and way too time consuming.

(on my side i too prefer to have the same skills base set accross the whole game)

Bar Brawl anyone?

SRG.3607:

LaronX.8079:

So basically what you did in Gw1. Very good. Just do what you learned from that game an it’ll be good.

On that particular subject, it’s probably quite the opposite : they learned from the previous game that having 3 sets of skills to balance was a nightmare and way too time consuming.

(on my side i too prefer to have the same skills base set accross the whole game)

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Maybe it was time consuming in GW1 where there are literally over 10x more abilities than there are in GW2! 10x more game modes and more classes! Obviously it will take a little work to complete but if Arenanet isn’t willing to put forth the effort into making this game better, why should we play it!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

scerevisiae.1972:

Can we have a pvp game mode that doesn’t have downed state/rallying?

omg please, I hate that “rare” system

JonathanSharp.7094:

@:“Is sPvP ever going to be more than Conquest?”

Yes.

@: Balance: it’s something we’re definitely keeping in mind as we experiment with different game types. Some things carry over just fine from Conquest, others become weaker, and others become stronger. It’s inherent/to be expected in having different goals in different game modes.

I can’t give out too much info, but I can let you know that we are working on a new game mode.

Also, apparently in an interview at chinajoy, john corpening said there are no plans for new pvp modes in the near future. Is he mistaken or is there some miscommunication? Near future is an ambiguous term but id certainly expect new modes within the following month or so. We learned about new modes you were experimenting with I think back in 2013.

scerevisiae.1972:

Can we have a pvp game mode that doesn’t have downed state/rallying?

And then everyone was a power necro.

SkylightMoon.1980:

…

Also, apparently in an interview at chinajoy, john corpening said there are no plans for new pvp modes in the near future. Is he mistaken or is there some miscommunication? Near future is an ambiguous term but id certainly expect new modes within the following month or so. We learned about new modes you were experimenting with I think back in 2013.

neither i guess.
they are working on a new game mode. they were already a year ago. i believe it was said to cancel rumors.
taking some facts into count it just isnt realistic to be released in the near future.
the gamescom with its tournament is a big thing, the china release is still ongoing and they just started season 2.
maybe, and these are my hopes, after gamescom, after china they shift resources and start working on pvp content (NOT BALANCE) to be released somewhat mid season 2 fingerscrossed

maybe if they would work on 1 new mode instead of 5 (or more ?) it could be already done

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?

I have a hard time believing this has ever been a source of concern for any developer at Arena Net, ever

No offence

:)

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Yoh.8469:

One a separate note, how dismissive are you? Saying that people would have to learn a 2nd set of numbers if you split skills. How stupid do you think people honestly are?
Your basically saying people are so stupid, so lazy that they can’t read a skills description, and can’t comprehend that they work differently in different game modes.

I’m not saying this is intentional on your part, but it’s sounds so ugly and dismissive of your player base. Personally it just sounds like a cop out, and excuse to put as little effort and resources into balancing your game as possible. And forget about new anything to professions, what a joke.

I don’t think that was Mr. Jonathan’s intention at all Yoh. I believe he was merely saying that skill changes between game type(WvW, PvE, and PvP) can be hard to understand and cause confusion to some players.

As a mock example, Lets say you play PvE with your awesome build that gives you 5 seconds of fury when you use a skill and your build relies on it being 5 seconds. However, we split that specific skill only in PvP and you go play and realize only after playing a few engagements that it only gives 3 seconds of fury. Then you go to WvW and realize that the skill is back to 5 seconds of Fury.

• How does that player feel?
• What questions is that player going to ask?
  * Is this a bug?
  * Why is it only different in PvP?
• Who is going to answer those questions?
• Are they going to try and seek out someone to answer these questions?
• Is the person they (if they do ask) going to know the actual reason for this change?
• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?

The simplest change can have a huge effect on a player in any game, and when you start splitting skills and causing inconsistencies on top of balancing multiple game modes it can get a bit crazy for players to keep up. I hope this helps everyone understand what questions and thought process we go through as a team when deciding on splitting skills.

Those changes arn’t huge though, like the changes to the duration in fury you mentioned. Changes to something like say the initiative cost for a thieves skill or the telegraph on another is a very big change. Changing the way adrenaline works would be also a significant change. Or changing the fact that a mesmers dodge when he/she has 3 clones up doesn’t produce another clone. I think when balancing pvp/pve/wvw separately, we wouldn’t see such severe difference like the ones I stated above.

Its just going to make balancing extremely difficult for you, and maybe unnecessarily so, if you choose to go the path of balancing 1 game mode instead of 3 separately.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Yoh.8469:

One a separate note, how dismissive are you? Saying that people would have to learn a 2nd set of numbers if you split skills. How stupid do you think people honestly are?
Your basically saying people are so stupid, so lazy that they can’t read a skills description, and can’t comprehend that they work differently in different game modes.

I’m not saying this is intentional on your part, but it’s sounds so ugly and dismissive of your player base. Personally it just sounds like a cop out, and excuse to put as little effort and resources into balancing your game as possible. And forget about new anything to professions, what a joke.

I don’t think that was Mr. Jonathan’s intention at all Yoh. I believe he was merely saying that skill changes between game type(WvW, PvE, and PvP) can be hard to understand and cause confusion to some players.

As a mock example, Lets say you play PvE with your awesome build that gives you 5 seconds of fury when you use a skill and your build relies on it being 5 seconds. However, we split that specific skill only in PvP and you go play and realize only after playing a few engagements that it only gives 3 seconds of fury. Then you go to WvW and realize that the skill is back to 5 seconds of Fury.

• How does that player feel?
• What questions is that player going to ask?
  * Is this a bug?
  * Why is it only different in PvP?
• Who is going to answer those questions?
• Are they going to try and seek out someone to answer these questions?
• Is the person they (if they do ask) going to know the actual reason for this change?
• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?

The simplest change can have a huge effect on a player in any game, and when you start splitting skills and causing inconsistencies on top of balancing multiple game modes it can get a bit crazy for players to keep up. I hope this helps everyone understand what questions and thought process we go through as a team when deciding on splitting skills.

Hi there mister Norfolk,
I’d like to answer your questions based on how i personally would think/feel
as a person who plays all three gametypes to some degree (lot of pve/bit of pvp/little wvw during seasons)

• How does that player feel?
  -first thought would be: that skill is changed in this game type; better read the discription again.

• What questions is that player going to ask?
  * Is this a bug? – Why would anyone wthink that? Just make clear when a character enters the mists for the first time that (some) skills are separated between game modes
  * Why is it only different in PvP? – Again, why would I wonder as to why it is different there? The only thing that matters for a player is how it is different.
  Putting that aside, my first thought would probably be: skill is the same in wvw and pve but not pvp -> makes sense since pvp has its own skill template when i enter the mists while pve and wvw share my gear and traits. If a skill has a separate version for all three game types i’d think it’s for balancing reasons. Pve favors zerk against a wall, wvw is basically blobs with an emphasis on stability and aoe. Spvp is mostly damage on individual players/very small groups with a focus on controlling small capture points. It makes only sense that some skills are too strong in one version while being weak in another.

• Who is going to answer those questions?
  -My first stop would be the wiki, then google, then the forums in that order
  (assuming anet doesn’t have a part of their own hp dedicated to listing those differnces)

• Are they going to try and seek out someone to answer these questions?
  - Either that or just figure stuff out on my own, your players are not that stupid…
  Reading skill/trait despcriptions for the ones i use isn’t exactly rocket science.

• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?
  Why would anyone stop playing GW2 for that reason? That is not meant in a dismissive manner; I’m just curious as to why you think people would quit over stuff like that.

Although I wouldn’t phrase it like Yoh did, I still think you view most of the playerbase as rather ‘simple’ based some given reasons for not implementing certain stuff into the game (not only for pvp).

IMO the “only one” set of numbers thing is stupid and reduces classes to just a few builds what makes pvp incredible boring. Its like in the COD games, you got your guy who runs arround with his darn knive(s), the quickscoper etc. Yea.. this comparison sucks but it boils down to it at the end if you think about it People need to use this few (meta) builds or they gonna suck, no room for tinkering, all comes down to how fast you can push your buttons. Carefull preperation and testing (aswell finding your very own way to battle) doesnt happen. Patch hits, skills get changed.. (maybe) the meta builds get changed and thats about it. Im prolly not “worthy” to question the holy meta…but doesnt it starts to feel…uhh “weird” after a while running always the same 2 to 4 (might be more dunno) builds per class? I mean i only did PVP for a short time.. to get the balthasar backpiece for my ele (and ended up didnt like how it looks on it so it was for nothing :\ ) and man.. i was bored after 2 hours and needed to stop to (im serios) not sleep away in my chair. Sure i suck in pvp but then again i dont care. Was more of a chore to get the thing then fun… and i do belive PVP should be fun. I mean its afterall a game…and games should be fun to my knowledge. Outwitting your opponent on the battlefield and also in build. As best with your very own style so you can say “yeap i just beat that guy with that build i made, took some tinkering and testing but i can work with this” Not sure if i return to pvp but heh…then again there isnt much to come back to. (for me atleast) Now bring on your “gtfo noob” posts if it makes you feel good.. like i said its JUST my opinion.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Yoh.8469:

One a separate note, how dismissive are you? Saying that people would have to learn a 2nd set of numbers if you split skills. How stupid do you think people honestly are?
Your basically saying people are so stupid, so lazy that they can’t read a skills description, and can’t comprehend that they work differently in different game modes.

I’m not saying this is intentional on your part, but it’s sounds so ugly and dismissive of your player base. Personally it just sounds like a cop out, and excuse to put as little effort and resources into balancing your game as possible. And forget about new anything to professions, what a joke.

I don’t think that was Mr. Jonathan’s intention at all Yoh. I believe he was merely saying that skill changes between game type(WvW, PvE, and PvP) can be hard to understand and cause confusion to some players.

As a mock example, Lets say you play PvE with your awesome build that gives you 5 seconds of fury when you use a skill and your build relies on it being 5 seconds. However, we split that specific skill only in PvP and you go play and realize only after playing a few engagements that it only gives 3 seconds of fury. Then you go to WvW and realize that the skill is back to 5 seconds of Fury.

• How does that player feel?
• What questions is that player going to ask?
  * Is this a bug?
  * Why is it only different in PvP?
• Who is going to answer those questions?
• Are they going to try and seek out someone to answer these questions?
• Is the person they (if they do ask) going to know the actual reason for this change?
• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?

The simplest change can have a huge effect on a player in any game, and when you start splitting skills and causing inconsistencies on top of balancing multiple game modes it can get a bit crazy for players to keep up. I hope this helps everyone understand what questions and thought process we go through as a team when deciding on splitting skills.

Put the (Pvp) suffix like gw1, omg so hard to do

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

I don’t think that was Mr. Jonathan’s intention at all Yoh. I believe he was merely saying that skill changes between game type(WvW, PvE, and PvP) can be hard to understand and cause confusion to some players.

The simplest change can have a huge effect on a player in any game, and when you start splitting skills and causing inconsistencies on top of balancing multiple game modes it can get a bit crazy for players to keep up. I hope this helps everyone understand what questions and thought process we go through as a team when deciding on splitting skills.

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Why do you guys at Arenanet think us players are so stupid! One of the reasons you guys gave for locking out the new grandmaster traits was “so new players don’t feel overwhelmed”! That is the worst reason ever! And from that reasoning came an awful decision to have these traits cost money! Crazy! We are not all dumb! Stop treating us this way!

Not only that but you have already changed certain skills to act differently in PvP and PvE! Thief Revealed is a 4 second debuff in PvP! It’s only 3 seconds in PvE! Old Dhuumfire was 4 seconds of burning in PvE! 2 seconds in PvP! You did this because of balance! Now commit to this decision! Balance!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

• How does that player feel?
• What questions is that player going to ask?
  * Is this a bug?
  * Why is it only different in PvP?
• Who is going to answer those questions?
• Are they going to try and seek out someone to answer these questions?
• Is the person they (if they do ask) going to know the actual reason for this change?
• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?

Was any of these questions relevant in GW1? I dont remember a single player in GW1 who quit/stopped playing a gamemode because of some skills being different in PvP than in PvE.
I know the playerbase has changed over the years, people have a much shorter attention span etc. but I am just genuenly interested if someone ever asked these questions in GW1. Because IMO this is a very good solution because PvE and PvP are THAT different combat wise. I could imagine a split could even help people to play better PvP.

ArrDee.2573:

Why do you guys at Arenanet think us players are so stupid! One of the reasons you guys gave for locking out the new grandmaster traits was “so new players don’t feel overwhelmed”! That is the worst reason ever! And from that reasoning came an awful decision to have these traits cost money! Crazy! We are not all dumb! Stop treating us this way!

Look there is this other game developer out there who made a game called League of Legends. And the way Riot approaches their customers and makes a lot of money I feel like upper Anet management decided to copy it. So Devs use the terms “unfun”, “too complicated for new players” and generally know better.
Its refreshing to play a different game where the developers actually treat you as an adult. Valve would be such a company right around the corner for Anet. Dota2 having a playerbase that basicly LOVES them with a game that was designed being a burden of knowledge and is still insanely popular 10 years after starting as a little WC3 mod.

There is a common misconception though….

Your fantastic 5s fury build is not going to work in PvP regardless, because it is a whole other game than PvE or WvWvW…

You have to relearn, or get a completely different build to do each in the end anyway, so why would splitting seem so confusing?

Are you seriously thinking that people run Hambow in PvE dungeons? Do you seriously think that Condition Necromancers are a thing in fractals (aside from maybe one)? Do you think that we not make fun of the greatsword warrior waiting around in a corner for us to come and hundredblades yolo us to death in SPvP?

All gamemodes require different builds and mindsets.
You have to adjust either way, be it in numbers, or completely different builds… A distinction between numbers in gamemode A and gamemode B is not going to scare off a large playerbase. unless they are literally morrons (and pardon my french)…

The time to think that players cannot handle the changes between gamemodes must stop – large communities within said gamemodes literally “suffer” as they see their favourite class constantly fading away into nothingness because of stubborn reasons which in the end make 0 sense. Dare to do, in the end of it’s cycle, GW1 did it right, so why can’t this game?

I don’t think they think that we are stupid. They think that we may be confused.

Now what do I mean with “we”? Surely not “us”, since we are here in the forums, so we at least know how things work and how GW2 PvP is built.

Then who?
It’s simple: new players. If I was a new player trying for the first time SPVP my response to the first question (“How does that player feel?”) would not be “it probably works different in this game mode”. I mean, I am a new player, I don’t even know that this spvp think IS a gamemode!

This is still not an excuse, because I really think that a mini-tutorial popping up the first 2-3 times a player enter the mists could completely fix that problem.

Confusion dmg is already at that split state, it deals 50% less dmg in WvW than in PvE. (i dont know about pvp, i dont play conquest)
Why is that? It’s not making anyone quit the game, but it eliminates mesmers’ wvw buid variety. Power mesmer, or use-wp-after-dropping-veil mesmer…

sMihaly.1492:

Confusion dmg is already at that split state, it deals 50% less dmg in WvW than in PvE. (i dont know about pvp, i dont play conquest)
Why is that? It’s not making anyone quit the game, but it eliminates mesmers’ wvw buid variety. Power mesmer, or use-wp-after-dropping-veil mesmer…

Ye, also retal is less in pve/wvw than in pvp. I don’t exactly understand the mesmer glamour spec nerf. It was more than just confusion. It was the entire glamour spec. Sure, 4-5 mesmers running it could put 25 stacks of confusion on a melee train and nearly kill them, but 4-5 full zerk eles running 30-30-0-10-0 would do the same amount or even more damage if they all sharknadoed.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

wall of text, snip

this player you’re talking about would also wonder why his gear suddenly doesn’t have any stats or why half of it isn’t even needed any more. you didn’t have any problem with letting people wonder about that. where’s the problem with wondering about two or three more things? (the answer is low monetary revenue from pvp, but let’s pretend i asked that question seriously.)

i somehow have the bad feeling you people at anet mean “hotjoin” when you say “pvp” and “idiot” when you say “player”. the minimum age for this game is 12, so if you’re not gonna treat us as people with a fully functional brain anyway at least treat us like we’re 12 and not 3.

Ok, guys. Remember how the devs made the change to trait points to simplify allocation because some players chose not to put enough points in certain trees to benefit from the next trait in the tree? Those people exist. It’s definitely not everyone and they certainly aren’t saying that the people posting here are incapable of learning how best to use a split skillset which is totally where some of us are taking this argument. They even said they are splitting problem skills, so perhaps if you make a case for specific skills that need to function differently in PVP vs PVE and why they might consider it. That being said, they’ve said time and again how to give constructive feedback and saying “You called me an idiot” really isn’t helpful or true.

good to know that after 2 long years we are going to have 2 different PvP modes, I’m so exited!!! -_-’

as for “when it’s ready” pls…. you said that if you saw that something needed to be addressed you would do it on the fly since you don’t have to take down the servers.

you also said you would change things little by little “baby steps” you said, correct me if I’m wrong but you address balance to all professions at the same time with game changing changes and you do it twice a year.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?

I have a hard time believing this has ever been a source of concern for any developer at Arena Net, ever

No offence

:)

They could quite certainly ask the question, it’s more a question of how much they consider it or how realistically they are in their interpretations.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Yoh.8469:

One a separate note, how dismissive are you? Saying that people would have to learn a 2nd set of numbers if you split skills. How stupid do you think people honestly are?
Your basically saying people are so stupid, so lazy that they can’t read a skills description, and can’t comprehend that they work differently in different game modes.

I’m not saying this is intentional on your part, but it’s sounds so ugly and dismissive of your player base. Personally it just sounds like a cop out, and excuse to put as little effort and resources into balancing your game as possible. And forget about new anything to professions, what a joke.

I don’t think that was Mr. Jonathan’s intention at all Yoh. I believe he was merely saying that skill changes between game type(WvW, PvE, and PvP) can be hard to understand and cause confusion to some players.

As a mock example, Lets say you play PvE with your awesome build that gives you 5 seconds of fury when you use a skill and your build relies on it being 5 seconds. However, we split that specific skill only in PvP and you go play and realize only after playing a few engagements that it only gives 3 seconds of fury. Then you go to WvW and realize that the skill is back to 5 seconds of Fury.

• How does that player feel?
• What questions is that player going to ask?
  * Is this a bug?
  * Why is it only different in PvP?
• Who is going to answer those questions?
• Are they going to try and seek out someone to answer these questions?
• Is the person they (if they do ask) going to know the actual reason for this change?
• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?

The simplest change can have a huge effect on a player in any game, and when you start splitting skills and causing inconsistencies on top of balancing multiple game modes it can get a bit crazy for players to keep up. I hope this helps everyone understand what questions and thought process we go through as a team when deciding on splitting skills.

Nothing complicated. Literally just put a note in the tooltip that says: PvP: 3sec of Fury

Playing PvE vs PvP vs WvW are already very different. You’re changing your build and “relearning” your profession when you make the switch, regardless of whether there’s skill splits between modes.
Of course there’s lines that can’t be crossed, judgement calls that must be made. Something that fundamentally changes a skill can probably be agreed upon as “going too far”, and you shouldn’t wind up with every skill having different values because that really would be convaluted. But if you need to make some game-mode specific number tweaks in order to properly balance the game, hesitating because “oh know, the player will have to know what they’re doing!” doesn’t strike me as a valid reason not to go through with it.

If players are getting confused, they should learn the game a bit more.. It shouldn’t be that we keep the game this casual and low skilled because of this…

To create more activity you must have some depth. GW1 is the perfect example, sorry it’s just the best game. People leave because it’s so easy to achieve something here..

PS: I’ve been on my monk yesterday, god, I miss it

I have to play devil’s advocate and agree with Hugh here. If you’re reading this, you’re better informed than 95% of the playerbase- it’s not reasonable to make changes as though we’re 100% of the playerbase.

I don’t get all the talking about GW1 and how amazing it was.

NOT A SINGLE dev (at least in the pvp side) from GW1 is still working for GW2.
This game wasn’t (for the past 2 years), isn’t and WILL NEVER be like GW1.

Get over it. This game will never be any competitive. GW1 is still more active in pvp (all gamemodes included) than GW2 is.

This game just requires no skill at all.
Even the below average player is able to run guardian, hammbow, evade spam thief while being good at playing War – Monk – Ranger in GW1 pvp required more than just rolling your face on the keyboard.

Your Game My Rules.5324:

I don’t get all the talking about GW1 and how amazing it was.

NOT A SINGLE dev (at least in the pvp side) from GW1 is still working for GW2.
This game wasn’t (for the past 2 years), isn’t and WILL NEVER be like GW1.

Get over it. This game will never be any competitive. GW1 is still more active in pvp (all gamemodes included) than GW2 is.

This game just requires no skill at all.
Even the below average player is able to run guardian, hammbow, evade spam thief while being good at playing War – Monk – Ranger in GW1 pvp required more than just rolling your face on the keyboard.

Exactly.

The current devs think they can build up a pvp scene by creating a casual relatively shallow experience. Seeing how most players in pretty much all pvp games are casuals i can understand the reasoning.

But its a huge mistake

Without proper depth and a solid hardcore scene those casuals will never be more than that…..casuals. Passers by.

There is no hill to climb and only very few players to look up to in pvps current incarnation.

Untill they realize this and start adding complexity in areas (professions and builds mainly) where its needed, the popularity of pvp in this game isnt going to improve drastically.

JonathanSharp.7094:

You guys know how we do it!

“When it’s ready”, indeed.

@ balance and splitting skills: Splitting the entire game into 2 (or 3, if you want to be technical: PvE, WvW, PvP) sets of #‘s creates a LOT of overhead in maintaining 3 sets of numbers. As most skills are fine across game types, it’s more efficient to split off problem skills and leave the majority of skills consistent across game types. It also means that people have a general sense of relative balance across all game types, and don’t have 2-3 sets of numbers to learn.

That you refuse to split them is the reason for the glacial balancing process, which is killing PvP, and you know it.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?

Have you ever pondered if PvPers aren’t rather quitting because there is zero balance change for months at a time?

Personally I have to have my expectations so low that I’m not disappointed in the time frame when it comes to pushing out content concerning pvp “don’t take that personally”. That being said, whenever you do come out with a new game mode consider these suggestions.

Step 1- It doesn’t resemble conquest in any way, shape or form. No standing in circles, please. The community is screaming for diversity, not something so similar that it might as well be irrelevant in a few weeks after release.

Step 2- Give it and conquest a separate ladder that works.

Step 3 – Profit

Countless

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Yoh.8469:

One a separate note, how dismissive are you? Saying that people would have to learn a 2nd set of numbers if you split skills. How stupid do you think people honestly are?
Your basically saying people are so stupid, so lazy that they can’t read a skills description, and can’t comprehend that they work differently in different game modes.

I’m not saying this is intentional on your part, but it’s sounds so ugly and dismissive of your player base. Personally it just sounds like a cop out, and excuse to put as little effort and resources into balancing your game as possible. And forget about new anything to professions, what a joke.

I don’t think that was Mr. Jonathan’s intention at all Yoh. I believe he was merely saying that skill changes between game type(WvW, PvE, and PvP) can be hard to understand and cause confusion to some players.

As a mock example, Lets say you play PvE with your awesome build that gives you 5 seconds of fury when you use a skill and your build relies on it being 5 seconds. However, we split that specific skill only in PvP and you go play and realize only after playing a few engagements that it only gives 3 seconds of fury. Then you go to WvW and realize that the skill is back to 5 seconds of Fury.

• How does that player feel?
• What questions is that player going to ask?
  * Is this a bug?
  * Why is it only different in PvP?
• Who is going to answer those questions?
• Are they going to try and seek out someone to answer these questions?
• Is the person they (if they do ask) going to know the actual reason for this change?
• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?

The simplest change can have a huge effect on a player in any game, and when you start splitting skills and causing inconsistencies on top of balancing multiple game modes it can get a bit crazy for players to keep up. I hope this helps everyone understand what questions and thought process we go through as a team when deciding on splitting skills.

you could simply leave a note for people entering PvP the first time, or send a generic mass mail to players using the PvP Build tool for the first time explaining that due to balancing reasons, PvP may or may not use different stats, durations, cooldowns and whatnot. This would be to maintain a certain amount of equilibrium between classes to promote player skill rather then profession choice being the deciding factor in a fight.

Ofc, you’d have to say it in a more elaborate and fancy manner, but that should tell people why and perhaps most importantly, why it is so important to keep skills split for the modes.

After all this time I realy dont understand why Anet doesnt want to be involved in WvW GvG scene and want to create “new” spvp mod.

GvG now itself (solely managed by the community) has more fans and guilds and it is thousand times more competitive than spvp ever has been in the past two years.
Thx to the fact that the more combat skilled team actually win, not the one who can hold points longer, cap faster and outnumber enemy on points…

Still, after all this time, Anet sincerely believe that 5v5 conquest spvp will become e-sport even when the basic million-times repeated flaws will never make it to happen. (ever heard about asura?)

Instead leaving conquest spvp as it is and looking around and asking what the players want (do you ever heard of guild vs guild in game called Guild Wars?), they still want to ressurect spvp and throwing most of their ressources into this…

I am speechless.

JonathanSharp.7094:

You guys know how we do it!

“When it’s ready”, indeed.

@ balance and splitting skills: Splitting the entire game into 2 (or 3, if you want to be technical: PvE, WvW, PvP) sets of #‘s creates a LOT of overhead in maintaining 3 sets of numbers. As most skills are fine across game types, it’s more efficient to split off problem skills and leave the majority of skills consistent across game types. It also means that people have a general sense of relative balance across all game types, and don’t have 2-3 sets of numbers to learn.

I hear what you are saying about balancing 3 different modes. I loved it for GW1 because it offered variety of play. I could roll different builds for the same class in AB, RA, and PvE. You guys want to keep the headaches down and the headaches were there in GW1. Got it.

The thing I don’t get is why we don’t have a regularly shifting meta then. Not balance per se, but change so that the game play isn’t stale. Most of what I see in the comments in this thread are about just that: The game feels stale. Shift which class is best in slot for damage for 2 months then switch it to another flavor for another 2 months. Do the same for CC. Do the same for support. Make those last two more viable options for PvE.

I have been a strong proponent of skill splits for a long time. When that got shot down I have had conversations with you in the forums about a shifting meta. Neither ever seems to happen even when it’s said that you guys are looking at little changes here and there.

• The change to Engie rifle is a prime example for skill splits because of the reduction in knock back on the #4 rifle skill. That is great for PvP and Conquest and terrible for the other two formats where there isn’t a little circle dictating the entirety of the game play. At the very least look at specific skills as candidates for splits.

• Maces on Warriors are as viable in PvE or WvW as underwater weapons are in PvP. Meta shift what is viable so we get variety and eliminate the staleness that most people in here are eluding to. That’s just one example of myriad other weapons just like it for other classes.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/CDI-Topic-Suggestion-Skill-Splits/first#post3760687

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Here comes an Anet dev to tell us things are coming without giving us any information on what is coming or when it’s coming! Anyone remember leagues! They said that was coming! Anyone remember those 3 pictures of the new maps! Castle or fortress or whatever with all the bookshelves! Yeah that was like half a year ago! Maybe more! It’s always this “Hey we’re doing things but can’t talk about it and then a year later we’re still working on it!” It’s getting very old and the things you said you were working on a year ago STILL aren’t here!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

EDIT:

@: Balance: it’s something we’re definitely keeping in mind as we experiment with different game types. Some things carry over just fine from Conquest, others become weaker, and others become stronger. It’s inherent/to be expected in having different goals in different game modes.

The solution is SO SIMPLE!!!! Split up abilities into PvP and PvE versions! You did it in GW1! Why won’t you commit to it for GW2! You already did it for some skills like old Dhuumfire and the revealed timer! Why aren’t you committing! Why! WHY!

Wahoo!

The best

@Hugh and Jonathan, I remember once around 2010ish reading an interview that Izzy gave to a fansite. When he was asked “if you could go back in time and give a single tip to your 2005 self about how to balance the game, what would it be?” his reply was “Split skills! I really wish we had done it sooner, I can’t believe it took us as long as it did!”

I’m not trying to say that Izzy is better at balancing than Hugh or Karl McLain or whoever – a lot of people were VERY angry with some of the balancing decisions made back then! :p I’m saying that he’s been through the same process, dealt with the same problems, AND ALREADY SOLVED THEM! Why are you guys still confuzzled by them?

Any company that, like ANet, has been in the same business for 14 years now should have put together a best practices document by now – why are the lessons you learned from GW1 not on it?

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

• How does that player feel?
• What questions is that player going to ask?
  * Is this a bug?
  * Why is it only different in PvP?
• Who is going to answer those questions?
• Are they going to try and seek out someone to answer these questions?
• Is the person they (if they do ask) going to know the actual reason for this change?
• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?

Once again, you guys already solved this : when you’re in pve, your skill’s tooltip reads “Hugh’s Stance: gain 5” Fury". When you enter pvp (and/or wvw), split skills are briefly highlighted, the message “some of your equipped skills have been changed to their pvp versions” briefly flashes across the screen, and your tooltip now reads “Hugh’s Stance (pvp version): gain 3” Fury"! It’s so simple! I can’t believe it’s an issue for you guys when you solved it years ago!

I know you’ve had a lot of staff turnaround, including 2 of the company’s 3 co-founders, since those days – but a lot of the people who made those decisions STILL WORK THERE, albeit at different posts! It’s not hard to get them together for one day a week and get them to put together a “best practices” manual for employees that currently work at posts they used to occupy!

Your Game My Rules.5324:

GW1 is still more active in pvp (all gamemodes included) than GW2 is.

You lost me when you started lying to exaggerate your point. Cause you know, this is ludicrously easy to verify. When I logged into GW1 last week fit nostalgia’s sake, I went to go do the pvp I liked there and was disappointed. The temple of Balthazar, which back before gw2 would have a dozen or more full districts, had one, rather empty district. HoM is far more active. But, then I went to check fort aspenwood and jade quarry. Both were totally and completely empty. Not a single person on either end.

You mean HoH? /fifteen

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?

The question can be asked for any game type, but we have asked it.

This is not a silly topic at all.

When they nerfed Ranger shortbow from 1200 to 900 range, I quit playing my Ranger and have pretty much never played that character since. How long ago was that 6-9 months ago?

Also, I know at least half a dozen ex GW2 players who no longer play because something they really liked or enjoyed got nerfed, so they give up and moved on to other games. It was definitely a factor in them stopping playing GW2.

I think every nerf devs put into there game upsets a certain % of players and a few of those will take that as time to stop playing completely.

Nerfs are very negative.

You also need to introduce new, powerful and interesting skills/abilities. A lot of the new skills like the new healing skills, grandmaster traits were too conservative, boring and generally worse than the skills already available. What was the point?

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Yoh.8469:

One a separate note, how dismissive are you? Saying that people would have to learn a 2nd set of numbers if you split skills. How stupid do you think people honestly are?
Your basically saying people are so stupid, so lazy that they can’t read a skills description, and can’t comprehend that they work differently in different game modes.

I’m not saying this is intentional on your part, but it’s sounds so ugly and dismissive of your player base. Personally it just sounds like a cop out, and excuse to put as little effort and resources into balancing your game as possible. And forget about new anything to professions, what a joke.

I don’t think that was Mr. Jonathan’s intention at all Yoh. I believe he was merely saying that skill changes between game type(WvW, PvE, and PvP) can be hard to understand and cause confusion to some players.

As a mock example, Lets say you play PvE with your awesome build that gives you 5 seconds of fury when you use a skill and your build relies on it being 5 seconds. However, we split that specific skill only in PvP and you go play and realize only after playing a few engagements that it only gives 3 seconds of fury. Then you go to WvW and realize that the skill is back to 5 seconds of Fury.

• How does that player feel?
• What questions is that player going to ask?
  * Is this a bug?
  * Why is it only different in PvP?
• Who is going to answer those questions?
• Are they going to try and seek out someone to answer these questions?
• Is the person they (if they do ask) going to know the actual reason for this change?
• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?

The simplest change can have a huge effect on a player in any game, and when you start splitting skills and causing inconsistencies on top of balancing multiple game modes it can get a bit crazy for players to keep up. I hope this helps everyone understand what questions and thought process we go through as a team when deciding on splitting skills.

Mr. Norfolk, I’m coming to this discussion from a PvE perspective, and in the dungeon subforum, we NEVER get a dev, so it’s nice to see that someone reads at least some of the threads on this forum.

I’m going to have to agree with Yoh on this. I’m sorry, and not to be rude, but PvP and PvE are totally and completely different in every single aspect. What works well in PvE (I run a full Berserker warrior and run through content like it was made of wet paper) doesn’t work at all in PvP. I tried doing what I do in PvE in PvP when the patch hit in April, and I got totally and completely annihilated. The excuse of your mock example is, no personal offense intended, deplorable. They’re already totally and completely different. It would take a player all of 30 minutes (if they’re not used to playing games) to discover the difference, and it would not matter in the slightest. Look at Mass Effect for example. PvE (campaign mode) is balanced totally different that the (sorta) multiplayer included in that game. It took 10 minutes to adapt, and then it was awesome.

Split the balance. The overhead excuse doesn’t hold water, as you’ve got almost three times the employees that you had when the game launched, and there’s less of a player base to balance. The server excuse doesn’t hold water either. Just upgrade your servers. Not to sound dismissive, but if you need revenue, just have a game sale, or gem store sale, or something to that extent.

It can be done, and it would benefit your players, who would in turn, increase your bottom line.

And please, send a Dev over to the dungeon subforum sometime. We haven’t seen anyone there since Hrouda left.

JonathanSharp.7094:

You guys know how we do it!

“When it’s ready”, indeed.

@ balance and splitting skills: Splitting the entire game into 2 (or 3, if you want to be technical: PvE, WvW, PvP) sets of #‘s creates a LOT of overhead in maintaining 3 sets of numbers. As most skills are fine across game types, it’s more efficient to split off problem skills and leave the majority of skills consistent across game types. It also means that people have a general sense of relative balance across all game types, and don’t have 2-3 sets of numbers to learn.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Player_versus_Player

Pre-release the word was… that the devs understood it was important to balance PvP seperately and would do so when appropriate.

I link this article not because it black and white states that (it illudes to it) but because of the hillarious quote at the bottom, stating that many GW developers consider themselves hard core PvPers.

Just some laughs.

Look John Sharpe, I feel like I was promised a GW1 Sequel inspired by MtG, balanced just for PvP by a group that appreciated PvP.

We didn’t even have features like spectator, or ladder until the year mark. We still don’t have pause. These are pretty basic – if you want to be an esport – type features…

So I feel like the development team lied to me to get my pre-order monies, and PvP was never actually a priority for you at all. (I also don’t really like the PvP gameplay you made, it definatly wasn’t inspired by GW1 and it absolutely wasn’t inspired by MtG.)

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Yoh.8469:

One a separate note, how dismissive are you? Saying that people would have to learn a 2nd set of numbers if you split skills. How stupid do you think people honestly are?
Your basically saying people are so stupid, so lazy that they can’t read a skills description, and can’t comprehend that they work differently in different game modes.

I’m not saying this is intentional on your part, but it’s sounds so ugly and dismissive of your player base. Personally it just sounds like a cop out, and excuse to put as little effort and resources into balancing your game as possible. And forget about new anything to professions, what a joke.

I don’t think that was Mr. Jonathan’s intention at all Yoh. I believe he was merely saying that skill changes between game type(WvW, PvE, and PvP) can be hard to understand and cause confusion to some players.

As a mock example, Lets say you play PvE with your awesome build that gives you 5 seconds of fury when you use a skill and your build relies on it being 5 seconds. However, we split that specific skill only in PvP and you go play and realize only after playing a few engagements that it only gives 3 seconds of fury. Then you go to WvW and realize that the skill is back to 5 seconds of Fury.

• How does that player feel?
• What questions is that player going to ask?
  * Is this a bug?
  * Why is it only different in PvP?
• Who is going to answer those questions?
• Are they going to try and seek out someone to answer these questions?
• Is the person they (if they do ask) going to know the actual reason for this change?
• Is that player going to stop playing PvP or GW2 all together?

The simplest change can have a huge effect on a player in any game, and when you start splitting skills and causing inconsistencies on top of balancing multiple game modes it can get a bit crazy for players to keep up. I hope this helps everyone understand what questions and thought process we go through as a team when deciding on splitting skills.

Nor do I, but intentions a often times irrelevant. It’s the results that matter.
And unfortunately your own example illustrates my problem, the questions you ask, while legitimate, come across as condescending.

If a skill split is causing an individual great concern or confusion, then it’s seems to me that is poor conveyance on your part. You’ve changed a skill but not shown how it was changed or even that it is was change until a player used it in practice.
If a player discovers a change that way, they have a right to be concerned.

If instead you had a visual indicator showing that the skill is indeed different, most people will simply accept that fact and factor that into their decisions. People for the most part are not stupid.

-

But even if it does cause some players a problem, because no action you can ever take will ever cause people not to, is still no excuse for inaction. People are going to have a problem no matter what you do. You still have to balance your game, and take whatever action you need to take to keep people interested.

Thou it certainly isn’t realistic to think that a mere skill change would cause players to leave a game mode or the game in it’s entirety. People will adapt to change, even if it’s unpleasant. Do you see players leaving en mass after every patch update? No.
People are far more likely to leave if the game doesn’t grow or change, because we play to have fun, and stagnation is very boredom inducting.

-
Because my ultimate point is that isn’t just that asking such questions sounds terrible, but the reaction it’s a result of the growing stagnation that you’ve created by not splitting skills and balancing your game accordingly. You’ve handicapped yourselves right from the outset, and you use feeble questions as a way to dodge responsibility. That’s what it looks like, at least to me. It’s your lack of action/results that makes me doubt your sincerity.

Because I don’t see the internal development, I’m not a mind reader. All I see is actions not being taken, a game growing more and more stagnant as it goes on as a result of a lack of balance changes and additions, and developers giving excuses as to why they just can’t seem to do said actions in a timely manner. You’ve got to find a better balance between too much change, and too little. Some change, any change is preferable to none. And your far, far to close to the too little end of the spectrum.

I’m not expecting GW1 levels of content here, it’s doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be good and regular.

@ Dev Response

…

Wait so you’re saying that we shouldn’t have amulets to distribute attributes differently in PvP and PvE, because it completely rescales all of the abilities involved?

Oh… wait.

This argument is trash can and you know it. Really really trash can, for so many reasons I would call it a troll if it wasn’t also so long.

I’ll see a new game mode when i see a new expansion. Thats what i’ve concluded about this game.. as much as i like pvp i find myself in wvw more just being i really am over conquest.

Progress is slow, but I am glad to here the devs say that a new game mode is being developed.

This process started way back when we had the joint community development brainstorming, and I think a lot of the rewards overhaul was based on community feedback from that time. Now because of those changes, I can go out into WvW and be somewhat competitive with a level 80 and decent gear, even though I have only done spvp since launch. Its good.

Having seen that I have faith that the new game mode (s?) will be delivered and probably be good- hopefully incorporating the feedback from the joint community development period.

IsilZha.3608:

Your Game My Rules.5324:

GW1 is still more active in pvp (all gamemodes included) than GW2 is.

You lost me when you started lying to exaggerate your point. Cause you know, this is ludicrously easy to verify. When I logged into GW1 last week fit nostalgia’s sake, I went to go do the pvp I liked there and was disappointed. The temple of Balthazar, which back before gw2 would have a dozen or more full districts, had one, rather empty district. HoM is far more active. But, then I went to check fort aspenwood and jade quarry. Both were totally and completely empty. Not a single person on either end.

He talks about the competition I guess, which is in GW1 (mostly GvG), still bigger than in GW2 nowadays. Hotjoin and soloQ can’t be taken seriously anyways.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

IsilZha.3608:

Your Game My Rules.5324:

GW1 is still more active in pvp (all gamemodes included) than GW2 is.

You lost me when you started lying to exaggerate your point. Cause you know, this is ludicrously easy to verify. When I logged into GW1 last week fit nostalgia’s sake, I went to go do the pvp I liked there and was disappointed. The temple of Balthazar, which back before gw2 would have a dozen or more full districts, had one, rather empty district. HoM is far more active. But, then I went to check fort aspenwood and jade quarry. Both were totally and completely empty. Not a single person on either end.

He talks about the competition I guess, which is in GW1 (mostly GvG), still bigger than in GW2 nowadays. Hotjoin and soloQ can’t be taken seriously anyways.

Hotjoin, soloq and team q are all a joke though really. People tend to be snobby about team queue or esl/whatever tournaments. But it is all a joke because this game failed by having no game modes etc